Samp­son Nan­ton

Sev­er­al parts of north­ern Trinidad ex­pe­ri­enced some of the worst flash flood­ing seen in re­cent years yes­ter­day, amid heavy and per­sis­tent rain­fall that start­ed just be­fore noon.

Ma­jor road­ways and com­mu­ni­ties in West­ern Trinidad were among the worst hit, with the free flow of traf­fic pre­vent­ed for over two hours in some cas­es.

Mo­torists de­scribed the rain­fall as ‘blind­ing’, as dri­ving through it be­came dif­fi­cult. The dark­ness as­so­ci­at­ed with the thick cloud cov­er al­so forced many to dri­ve with their lights on.

The rain be­gan just be­fore 11 am and con­tin­ued for well over an hour.

The heavy flow of wa­ter from the hilly com­mu­ni­ties made the West­ern Main Road in Co­corite im­pass­able by 12.15 pm, caus­ing a back­log of traf­fic deep in­to Diego Mar­tin and Care­nage.

The grid­lock per­sist­ed for over two hours, with hun­dreds of ve­hi­cles backed up in the traf­fic.

Video footage showed a line of ve­hi­cles fac­ing east along one of the west­bound lanes com­ing out of West­moor­ings, as dri­vers tried their best to get past the wa­ter.

A pho­to of Co­corite that was shared on­line showed wa­ter stretch­ing a span of near 100 me­tres as dri­vers wait­ed for it to abate.

“Stuck in West­mall for over two hours,” Jan Kalloo com­ment­ed on Face­book un­der the pho­to, as Roger Ganesh added, “This (is) the worst in my ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Those who were able to make it past Co­corite head­ing to­wards Port-of-Spain found them­selves stuck by more flood­wa­ters un­der the Co­corite over­pass, which pre­vent­ed traf­fic from flow­ing on­to the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way.

The route over the over­pass to­wards St James al­so proved a fruit­less op­tion, as dri­vers were al­so met with flood­wa­ters at the bot­tom of the fly­over out­side the St James Hos­pi­tal.

As traf­fic built up there as well, some dri­vers tried us­ing a route along Fort George Road to by­pass the flood but a land­slip along that road stopped traf­fic from go­ing any fur­ther.

Fur­ther in­to St James, a murky tor­rent made pas­sage im­pos­si­ble near RBC and video footage showed a tent from a near­by store over­turned in the de­bris-filled wa­ter.

“Don’t think St James ever flood­ing like this,” Marc Hus­bands com­ment­ed on Face­book, while Ann Marie Moore ar­gued that the flood had a spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion, stat­ing, “This how God speaks, be­cause he fed up with wicked­ness here. Mur­ders, rob­beries, rap­ing, fraud, to­tal chaos here like gun­men takeover TNT. God says enough is enough.”

Mu­cu­rapo Road was no bet­ter, as the wa­ter rose sev­er­al feet at the bot­tom of Bay Street to the dis­may of those hop­ing to es­cape the prob­lems en­coun­tered in St James.

Oth­er routes along Ari­api­ta Av­enue and Wright­son Road were al­so im­pass­able at var­i­ous spots.

Along Tra­garete Road, dri­vers re­port­ed dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting past the Queen’s Park Oval and the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery, as wa­ter al­so ac­cu­mu­lat­ed there, al­though not as high as in oth­er ar­eas.

High­er north, wa­ter al­so over­took Sad­dle Road in Mar­aval at the bot­tom of Scott Street, along­side the Mar­aval Plaza, slow­ing traf­fic but not com­plete­ly stop­ping it.

One of the most dra­mat­ic videos of floods record­ed yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, was at The Hol­lows at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Am­a­teur footage showed wa­ter vi­o­lent­ly gush­ing from a drain across a bridge, be­fore spilling out across the grass.

“Is this the sea I am look­ing at...this crazy first time,” Nan­cy Be­har­ry com­ment­ed un­der the video.

Roslyn Gloudon added, “I nev­er seen this hap­pen be­fore.”

The area low­er down, op­po­site Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, turned in­to a large pond as the wa­ter from The Hol­lows made its way there.

The rain al­so caused land­slips that threat­ened homes in Care­nage and Bournes Road, St James and fur­ther west, the road in­to Tuck­er Val­ley was al­so im­pass­able as the riv­er over­flowed across its path.

The heavy rain­fall was the re­sult of the pas­sage of a Trop­i­cal Wave over the is­land, al­though most of east­ern Trinidad was un­af­fect­ed.

The Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices has fore­cast part­ly cloudy con­di­tions with oc­ca­sion­al show­ers and a 40 per cent chance of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms favour­ing the af­ter­noon to­day.