Farm­ers wad­ed through rag­ing flood­wa­ters to res­cue their cows as heavy rains trig­gered flood­ing in sev­er­al parts of Pe­nal, Debe and Bar­rack­pore yes­ter­day.

Res­i­dents said the heavy rains ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the ris­ing tide posed prob­lems for peo­ple in the low­est ar­eas of the South Oropouche Drainage Basin. Crops and house­hold valu­ables were washed away in the floods.

At Tul­sa Trace, Pe­nal, Guardian Me­dia cap­tured footage of cows strug­gling to make it through the floods which flowed from the Black­wa­ter Chan­nel. One farmer was neck-deep in wa­ter as he herd­ed his an­i­mals to safe­ty.

“I had to go and bring out the an­i­mals. If you can’t swim well, you can’t take that chance but I could hold my end, so I went in,” he said when asked why he took the risk of swim­ming in flood­wa­ters.

In Wood­land, res­i­dents had al­ready stacked sand­bags around their homes and put valu­ables on high­er ground.

Ger­ard De­onar­ine, of Puz­zle Is­land, said he had to put his an­i­mals on a high­er bank on Thurs­day night but the floods came in more than five feet high yes­ter­day.

“Since Wednes­day when the rain first start­ed to fall, no­body both­ered to put on the pump. On Thurs­day at about 5 o’clock in the evening, the wa­ter start­ed to rise with pace. We don’t know how long they work the pump for but it should have been work­ing from Wednes­day to now,” he said.

Sunil Ra­moutar said res­i­dents bought sub­mersible pumps to drain their prop­er­ties.

“If I did not do this, I would be knee-deep in wa­ter,” he said.

Say­ing that res­i­dents have to bear the cost of the floods, Ra­moutar said it was time for the au­thor­i­ties to take Wood­land se­ri­ous­ly by mit­i­gat­ing flood­ing by in­stalling an­oth­er pump at the 14 gates.

“Should we get an­oth­er pump, we will get re­lief,” he said.

Mean­while, South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group pres­i­dent Ed­ward Mood­ie said crops were de­stroyed in the floods. He said in Wood­land, two mas­sive breach­es were spot­ted on the river­bank, which was be­ing washed away.

“I am putting Wood­land on alert that if the river­bank is washed away you will get eight feet of wa­ter in un­der 12 hours. Peo­ple will drown. The soil here is like marsh­land. Af­ter this rainy sea­son, I am hop­ing they will fix every sin­gle bank by bring­ing in ma­te­r­i­al and build the river­bank,” he said.

Mood­ie al­so said the pumps had been func­tion­ing at Tul­sa Trace for part of Thurs­day but not­ed this was not suf­fi­cient to pull the amount of wa­ter brought in­to the South Oropouche Drainage Basin via the Bhag­ma­nia and Trinidad Rivers.

“With­out a pump, we can­not es­cape floods. We need an­oth­er pump in Wood­land. The gates in St John are op­er­a­tional but the 14 gates in Wood­land are not ful­ly op­er­a­tional,” he added.

He said a third pump should be brought in­to the com­mu­ni­ty.