KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With the rains spar­ing no part of the coun­try over the past three days, sev­er­al fam­i­lies had to scam­per to safe­ty in south Trinidad with floods, land­slides and sat­u­rat­ed soil dam­ag­ing their homes and threat­en­ing their lives.

Rel­a­tives had to rush through the rain around 3 am on Mon­day to res­cue Meera Mo­hess, 57, and her daugh­ters Sav­era, 36, and Sar­va, 21, as the fam­i­ly lay trapped in­side their col­lapsed home.

Mo­hess told Guardian Me­dia that she and Sav­era were awake on the up­per sto­ry of her two-storey wood­en house in Con­go Vil­lage, Debe, when they heard a crack­ing sound.

Mo­hess told Sav­era to check out­side to see what was mak­ing the noise. As Sav­era walked to the stair­case, she saw the sill crack­ing.
They tried not to move but the house be­gan to fall apart with­in sec­onds.

A sleep­ing Sar­va woke up trapped be­tween two beds. Mo­hess was un­der a door and parts of the roof cov­ered Sav­era. Mo­hess said none of them could get out of the house.

It was dark and rainy but for­tu­nate­ly, Sar­va reached her mo­bile phone and called her rel­a­tives, Kevin Ramkaran and “Bun­ny.”

The men ar­rived with­in 10 min­utes, pulling de­bris off the women. Mo­hess made it out, bleed­ing from her head and bruis­es on her arms. Her daugh­ters were a bit more for­tu­nate re­gard­ing phys­i­cal in­jury, but their clothes, fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances were all soaked in the rain. Even Mo­hess’ di­a­betes med­i­cine got lost in the rub­ble.

T&TEC sub­se­quent­ly cut pow­er to the house while Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion work­ers cleaned the club­house at the Con­go Vil­lage Recre­ation Ground to pro­vide shel­ter for the fam­i­ly for the next few days.

How­ev­er, Mo­hess said she needs help to shel­ter her fam­i­ly and re­build their home.

An­oth­er fam­i­ly in Clarke Road, Pe­nal, near­ly suf­fered a sim­i­lar fate, but ac­cord­ing to neigh­bours, they left the house fear­ing it would crush them in­side.

No one was home when the news team vis­it­ed, but the dis­lo­cat­ed columns and long cracks in the wall showed the dan­ger.

Neigh­bours said land move­ment in the area is wor­ry­ing and wors­ened with re­cent rains.

A land­slip stretch­ing sev­er­al hun­dred me­ters had al­ready made the road that con­nects Bar­rack­pore to Pe­nal im­pass­able to ve­hi­cles.

Res­i­dents said soon they may not be able to walk along the road­way.

Car­men Seep­er­sad said the land­slip cut off her fam­i­ly and neigh­bours from the rest of the vil­lage. To get to her job at the Clarke Road Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School, she has to trav­el down to Bar­rack­pore and pass through Sat­nar­ine Trace to get past the land­slip. With­out trans­porta­tion, she will have to walk past the land­slip.

An­oth­er land­slip de­vel­oped fur­ther along the road and wa­ter erod­ed part of the land next to a re­tain­ing wall. Seep­er­sad said the road closed two months ago.

Mean­while, some res­i­dents of Rochard Road, Bar­rack­pore, left their homes on Sun­day af­ter­noon af­ter the drains and rivers in their com­mu­ni­ty be­gan to spill in­to their homes.

Bis­soon­di­al Seer­am stood in his yard with nowhere to go as his home flood­ed for the ninth time in two weeks.

Seer­am said the flood came around 4.30 pm Sun­day and sub­sided around 11 pm. But when the down­pours re­turned, the wa­ter rose again, gush­ing across Rochard Road up to mid­day. He said sev­er­al se­nior cit­i­zens took refuge at their rel­a­tives’ homes.

Seer­am said res­i­dents are ac­cus­tomed to get­ting flood­ed, with yes­ter­day be­ing the ninth time they suf­fered wa­ter en­ter­ing their homes in two weeks.

“Some of them went by their rel­a­tives to spend the day at least be­cause most of us can­not re­al­ly stay around in this thing,” Seer­am said.

He said a nar­row cul­vert pass­ing un­der the road is the prob­lem, as it can­not ac­com­mo­date three streams of wa­ter com­ing from dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions.

Seer­am does not work every day but has to spend what he earns to re­place dam­aged items. He lost a re­frig­er­a­tor and wash­ing ma­chine when the wa­ter breached the flood walls he built. He al­so has to re­place doors reg­u­lar­ly as the wa­ter swells the ma­te­r­i­al.

Mean­while, flood­wa­ters re­mained high in Wood­land, with res­i­dents along Pluck Road un­able to get any re­lief from the week­end rains.