Sascha Wil­son

There was an­oth­er day of chaos in sev­er­al ar­eas of South Trinidad yes­ter­day, af­ter floods forced scores of res­i­dents to stay in­doors, some roads were left im­pass­able and sev­er­al busi­ness­es re­mained closed. Oth­er res­i­dents al­so left work ear­ly, fear­ful they could be strand­ed.

And if the heavy rains con­tin­ue, it is ex­pect­ed that res­i­dents and farm­ers will suf­fer mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es, as the ground is sat­u­rat­ed and some wa­ter­ways were swelling overnight while oth­ers had al­ready over­run rivers banks.

One of the hard­est-hit ar­eas was in the Pe­nal Rock Road area, where the Cu­ra­ma­ta Riv­er burst its banks. Wad­ing through the floods to speak with Guardian Me­dia, Dave Ja­groops­ingh, who lives at Mulchan Trace, which is off the Pe­nal Rock Road, said, “We have been go­ing through this flood­ing for­ev­er. It is due to the im­prop­er drainage and every time rain falls, every time rain just set up, the flood it get three, four, five feet high.”

Brac­ing for the flood lev­el to rise even high­er, he said, “I ac­tu­al­ly had to leave work this morn­ing and re­turn home be­cause if I didn’t do that, then my ve­hi­cle wouldn’t be able to come home, I would have been ma­rooned and strand­ed out the road. Now, in this rainy sea­son, I have to be en­dur­ing this thing for like some­times twice for the week.”

In the event of an emer­gency, he said they would have to walk through the flood­wa­ters be­cause ve­hi­cles can­not pass.

Res­i­dent Shar­lene Si­mon said she could not go to work.

A van drives through the high floodwaters along the Penal Rock Road yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“You just have to stay in­side, you can­not go any­where. If you have some­thing im­por­tant you have to can­cel it,” she said, adding that she an­tic­i­pat­ed that it might take a day for the wa­ter to sub­side.

Ja­son Phillip, of Morne Di­a­ble, which can al­so be ac­cessed from the Pe­nal Rock Road, came from work and was await­ing trans­porta­tion to go home. He said he took an al­ter­na­tive route to get home be­cause of the floods but un­for­tu­nate­ly, he al­so en­coun­tered flood­ing along that route.

With the coun­try un­der a river­ine flood alert yel­low lev­el, Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said the sit­u­a­tion would get worst if the rain con­tin­ues.

“It con­tin­ues to be bad, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Pe­nal Rock Road area but al­so, we have found that there are floods in ar­eas that don’t nor­mal­ly flood like La Ro­maine along the main road. That’s un­usu­al, but it hap­pened last week al­so, so I don’t know if this is a shift in the weath­er pat­tern or what it has to do with cli­mate change but cer­tain­ly, some­thing is hap­pen­ing in Pe­nal/Debe in re­spect of new ar­eas of flood­ing.”

How­ev­er, he said tra­di­tion­al ar­eas con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence flood­ing. “So the Pe­nal Rock Road, which is drained by the Cu­ra­ma­ta Riv­er, which em­anates in the south­ern range, as you know that road is on the foothills of the south­ern range. All the peo­ple who live along those traces and along the main road it­self are neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by the flood­ing on the main road.”

Sandbags were placed at the front of this home along Moolchan Trace, Penal, yesterday, to prevent floodwaters entering the property.

RISHI RAGOONATH

While they had re­ceived no calls for as­sis­tance or evac­u­a­tion, Sam­my said the cor­po­ra­tion was on alert and on stand by to help. With more rain ex­pect­ed over the next few days, he added, “We look­ing at homes now be­ing in­un­dat­ed be­cause the ground is su­per­sat­u­rat­ed. It means, there­fore, that there is no abil­i­ty for the soil to ab­sorb any more wa­ter. It will there­fore flow in­to peo­ple’s homes.”

Sam­my said peo­ple, in­clud­ing farm­ers, could suf­fer mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es not on­ly to house­hold ar­ti­cles but al­so crops and live­stock.

He said peo­ple are al­so men­tal­ly drained by the fre­quent flood­ing. “There is some­thing that peo­ple are not mea­sur­ing and that is the psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age that is be­ing done to peo­ple over time and peo­ple now live in con­stant fear, apart from liv­ing in fear of crime and ban­dits and so on, they now live in fear of flood­ing,” he added.

The cor­po­ra­tion al­so gave out sand­bags. There were re­ports of flood­ing in Williamsville, Rousil­lac, Pa­lo Seco, Clax­ton Bay, San Fer­nan­do, La Ro­maine, Debe, Bar­rack­pore Dow Vil­lage, Aripero and Point Fortin.

Business places were forced to close as flood water rise along the Rock Road, in Penal, yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH