Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With flash flood­ing af­fect­ing sev­er­al parts of South and Cen­tral Trinidad yes­ter­day, res­i­dents, stu­dents and even a fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion were af­fect­ed as heavy rains caused roads to be­come im­pass­able.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture ad­vised that there was flood­ing at Bras­so Road, Ca­paro Val­ley, SS Erin Road in Pe­nal near Batchyia Vil­lage, Pati­ram Trace, Clark Road and Pe­nal Rock Road. The min­istry en­cour­aged mo­torists to de­lay non-es­sen­tial trav­el, to al­low wa­ter lev­els to re­cede and urged all road users to avoid flood-prone ar­eas where pos­si­ble and pri­ori­tise safe­ty un­til con­di­tions im­prove.

Due to flood­ing along the La­choos Road and Pe­nal Rock Road, the fu­ner­al ser­vice of Rosie Mo­han was de­layed, as the hearse from Boyzie Boodoo Fu­ner­al Home had to find an al­ter­na­tive route to the house of mourn­ing at Jhulie Road off La­choos Road.

Her cousin Ricky Ram­per­sad said they were forced to pass through Good­man Trace, re­sult­ing in the ser­vice start­ing al­most an hour late.

Mean­while, Glen­ford Ram­nar­ine, a res­i­dent of Solomon Knox Road, La­choos Road, said that since 10 am, the road had be­gun flood­ing, leav­ing some res­i­dents un­able to leave or re­turn to the com­mu­ni­ty. He said one school­child was un­able to re­turn home af­ter school.

The is­sue, he said, was that the drainage sys­tem was poor and the drains al­so need­ed to be cleaned.

Mean­while, Chair­man of the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the flash flood­ing was “small” in com­par­i­son to pre­vi­ous floods. He cred­it­ed that to the flood mit­i­ga­tion and pre­ven­tion works that were un­der­tak­en by the Cor­po­ra­tion, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. While he had ex­pect­ed flash flood­ing due to the Ad­verse Yel­low Alert, he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that there would be no dis­as­ter ow­ing to the work they had un­der­tak­en. Due to the high tide, he said the runoff would be slow­er in some ar­eas, but he an­tic­i­pat­ed no flood­ing in the Wood­land area.

He as­sured res­i­dents that in the first week of the dry sea­son, they in­tend­ed to com­mence the sec­ond phase of the work, which would ad­dress “bot­tle­necks” caused by var­i­ous re­stric­tions with­in the wa­ter chan­nels.

Ca­paro/Mamoral coun­cil­lor John Leza­ma of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said three pri­ma­ry schools with­in the Bras­so/Tabaquite area and the Tabaquite Sec­ondary School were dis­missed ear­ly as a pre­cau­tion in the event that the roads be­come im­pass­able due to flood­ing.

Leza­ma said, “Usu­al­ly when the rain falls heav­i­ly, it tends to flood quick­ly in some ar­eas. Sharp Road in Ca­paro is un­der wa­ter, and there is some flood­ing by the Breed­ing Unit, and when there floods, it cuts off every­body from get­ting to Tabaquite and Bras­so.” How­ev­er, he said, they had re­ceived no dis­tress calls from res­i­dents.

There were al­so re­ports of street flood­ing and a fall­en tree along the Siparia Old Road, Siparia.