While most families returned to their homes yesterday after the floods subsided, a Penal family of three was left in a state of hopelessness after their home was badly damaged.
Drupaty Bridgemohan, 57, her son Wayne Bridgemohan, 36, and her brother Ajodha Dhanraj, 52, endured floods before, but nothing prepared them for what they saw yesterday.
“The flooring sink and the boards mash up. The ply boards soak up and falling off. Inside and outside of the house is only slush. We lose everything all our clothes, everything,” she lamented.
The family lived in a three- bedroom wooden house at Suchit Trace, which was one of the hardest hit areas. Like several other families, they were forced to leave their home on Thursday night and seek refuge by relatives, neighbours and friends.
“We have to break down and rebuild, but we hardly have money to buy food how we going to rebuild. This place in unlivable,” said Dhanraj.
They are among hundreds of people in Penal, Debe and Woodland who will likely face a bleak Christmas as they struggle to piece their lives back together.
Residents had to stay away from work to clean up their homes while their children could not attend school. Another family, of Suchit Trace, Kassandra Baiju and her husband Kevin Roopchan, who along with two sons, ages three and nine years old, stayed by a neighbour until the floods receded said they are fearful to stay at their home.
“It is not safe we know that but we have nowhere else to go. The walls (wooden) was doing the belly dance. It was moving. But, we cannot afford to pay a rent,” said Baiju.
They tried to save their appliances and furniture by putting them up on blocks, but the water rose too high. “Yes, we will like compensation, any help because the only thing we save was the stereo and a barrel of clothes,” she said. “I not even studying Christmas any more,” she lamented.
Devika Singh, her 13-year-old grandchild Kavina Singh, 12, who has a brain disorder, and other relatives of Mungal Trace, Woodland, have been badly flooded out once again.
“It was very difficult. The water was waist high and is four days we maroon upstairs,” she said. Thirty-five preschoolers would not have school for the rest of the week as their school Little Lotuses ECCE Centre in Woodland was also flooded out.
Owner Rasheed Baig, who also resides on the compound with his family, was busy pumping out water from his home and school yesterday.
“I looking to mop up and sanitize before we could open the school and my family could move back in,” said Baig.
Meanwhile, the corporation received flood relief supplies from the Mayaro Rio Claro, Sangre Grande and Tunapuna Regional Corporations yesterday.
