Charles Kong Soo

There was flash flood­ing in Port-of-Spain and sev­er­al parts of north Trinidad caused by heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms yes­ter­day.

Com­muters were strand­ed at City Gate as South Quay was in­un­dat­ed with flood­wa­ters. Flash floods al­so oc­curred at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, parts of Ari­api­ta Av­enue, in the vicin­i­ty of Car­los Street, O’Con­nor Street in Wood­brook, as well as along the La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant.

The T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice had ear­li­er is­sued an ad­verse weath­er alert, warn­ing of a 70 per cent chance of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms. The se­vere weath­er was trig­gered by a sur­face to low-lev­el trough that moved across both is­lands, with favourable mid-to up­per-lev­el con­di­tions. A strong wind shear kept much of the ac­tiv­i­ty brief and main­ly east of Trinidad.

The fore­cast is for heavy to vi­o­lent show­ers and thun­der­storms to­day which is ca­pa­ble of pro­duc­ing street or flash flood­ing, main­ly in the south Trinidad and lo­cal­ized ar­eas of west­ern Trinidad.

Cit­i­zens have been ad­vised to be on the alert for fre­quent light­ning and heavy rain­fall that might trig­ger street or flash flood­ing ac­com­pa­nied by gusty winds.

Kat­ty Christo­pher, Co­or­di­na­tor of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment, Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said there were no re­ports of flood­ing in that area yes­ter­day, while the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) said there were no in­ci­dents of flood­ing in cen­tral and south Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Jer­ry David, Se­nior Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor at the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, said there had been re­ports of flood­ing in Mor­vant and while “the riv­er had not in­un­dat­ed, how­ev­er, the ca­pac­i­ty of the riv­er was still high” up to late yes­ter­day.