KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As rain fell “buck­et a drop” from Sat­ur­day evening in­to Sun­day, it left Pe­nal and Debe res­i­dents hop­ing that low tide would take flood­wa­ters out of their homes.

It was the first ma­jor flood­ing event of the 2023 Rainy Sea­son in the re­gion that caught res­i­dents off-guard, leav­ing them un­able to load sand­bags and raise ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture off the floor in ad­vance.

The Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) was on stand­by to as­sist res­i­dents trapped in their homes in case more rain fell overnight.

PDRC chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my told Guardian Me­dia that rain fell per­sis­tent­ly for 18 hours, with in­tense show­ers and a few pe­ri­ods of driz­zle.

It stopped around 3.30 pm, al­low­ing peo­ple some move­ment.
Flood-prone ar­eas like Pe­nal Rock Road, Scotts Road, See­bal­ack Trace, Good­man Trace, Mulchan Road, Rochard Road, Clarke Road and ad­join­ing roads flood­ed.

The down­town Pe­nal area, Su­chit Trace, Wil­son Road, Sou Sou Lands, and Batchiya Vil­lage al­so had ris­ing wa­ter.

Some com­mu­ni­ties in Wood­land and La Ro­maine that do not usu­al­ly flood got their first ex­pe­ri­ence.

Sam­my said the PDRC em­barked on a 26-day clean-up cam­paign, re­mov­ing 600 truck­loads of bulk waste while its ex­ca­va­tors worked fever­ish­ly dur­ing the Dry Sea­son to clear wa­ter­cours­es.

How­ev­er, he said Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment was un­able to do its part.

“What Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment does, they clean their parts. They will take the ma­jor wa­ter cours­es, such as the Oropouche Riv­er and the trib­u­taries, such as the Pa­pourie Riv­er and the Cu­ru­ma­ta Riv­er and clean where high­ly vis­i­ble to the pub­lic, but low­er down and high­er up, it is not cleaned.

All they are do­ing is fool­ing the pop­u­la­tion that a com­pre­hen­sive clean-up pro­gramme is un­der­way,” Sam­my said.

With the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port not pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate clean­ing of the large wa­ter­cours­es, Sam­my said peo­ple are tak­ing mat­ters in­to their own hands.

He said the State has been un­will­ing and un­co­op­er­a­tive, so the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group went in­to the New Cut Chan­nel and cleared over­hang­ing man­groves that blocked the riv­er path. 

With re­ports com­ing in­to the PDRC in the af­ter­noon, Sam­my said:
“If the rain con­tin­ues to fall, we are in trou­ble.”

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Hen­ry Awong said they were brac­ing for floods in case rain fell overnight.

Awong said al­though there was flood­ing in the re­gion, none se­vere­ly af­fect­ed peo­ple’s homes.

He re­port­ed that a bro­ken cul­vert in Powd­harie Road, Presyal caused wa­ter to flow on­to the road and in­to res­i­dents’ yards. Wa­ter spilt in­to the flood-prone com­mu­ni­ty of Fairview Park, Freeport, and there was mi­nor flood­ing in a house at Bu­caro Vil­lage.

Awong said he called the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion to as­sist with an emer­gency af­ter light­ning struck a tree, caus­ing it to fall near some elec­tri­cal wires.

“It will be ter­ri­ble if rain falls overnight. We are brac­ing for se­vere flood­ing. As you know, the term of coun­cil­lors came to an end, but we are still ask­ing them to re­port through the same What­sApp chat we have where there is a need for emer­gency re­sponse.

“I will fol­low up with the rel­e­vant peo­ple in the cor­po­ra­tion, the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit, Prin­ci­pal Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health and en­gi­neer,” Awong said.

The Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment re­port­ed that strong winds blew off a roof in Man­zanil­la while there were fall­en trees in Princes Town and New Grant.