Sascha Wil­son and Shas­tri Boodan

A Gas­par­il­lo com­mu­ni­ty that has not ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing in over a decade was among sev­er­al ar­eas in south Trinidad un­der flood­wa­ters yes­ter­day.

While there were few re­ports of res­i­den­tial flood­ing, with more show­ers ex­pect­ed, res­i­dents in the Pe­nal/Debe, Gas­par­il­lo, Williamsville, Tabaquite/Guaracara and oth­er ar­eas be­lieve the worst is yet to come.

One Pe­nal fam­i­ly, how­ev­er, was look­ing for a place to sleep last night af­ter their home par­tial­ly col­lapsed dur­ing the heavy rains around mid­night on Fri­day.  The Bonne Aven­ture Main Road in Gas­par­il­lo near the po­lice sta­tion was im­pass­able to small ve­hi­cles while near­by homes and busi­ness­es were af­fect­ed. Gas­par­il­lo/Bonne Aven­ture coun­cil­lor Safraz Ali, who lives at Raza­ck Street off the main road, said his home was not spared.

He said it was the first time since 2010 that they had this lev­el of flood­ing along the main road. "What we get to un­der­stand is be­cause the tide was high this morn­ing, the rain start­ed since 3 o'clock this morn­ing. At present, the tide is go­ing down, but this road runs straight to Tabaquite and be­cause of the flood­ing in Guaracara this morn­ing all this wa­ter has to pass through and come down to Gas­par­il­lo here.

"We are hop­ing and pray­ing that the rain eas­es up, and the wa­ter could re­cede. Res­i­dents were al­so con­cerned that a ma­jor land­slide at a bridge along the main road would col­lapse if the heavy show­ers con­tin­ue."

Busi­ness­man Anil Ramjit said, "Our con­cern is if this road were to col­lapse and there is al­so ero­sion on the oth­er side (of the road),  it could cut off sup­ply to the area, goods and ser­vices, emer­gency ve­hi­cles. If there is a fire or am­bu­lance re­quest they will have to make the rounds through the back road, this could mean life and death. We are ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene as soon as pos­si­ble to get this sort­ed out."  

 Mean­while, Sel­van Bis­soon, 40, his wife, An­ja­nee Kit­wa­roo, and the 13-year-old daugh­ter of Clarke Road, Pe­nal, are ap­peal­ing for help to re­build their home which is crum­bling. He re­called, "We was be­tween sleep and wake around mid­night, and we just hear a hard noise and the whole kitchen gone down and the wardrobe fall on top of us on the bed."  

 Due to his pso­ri­a­sis con­di­tion, Bis­soon can­not work and his wife does part-time do­mes­tic work. "I am not work­ing. I don't have any mon­ey com­ing in from any­where. I don't know how to get back on my feet. We def­i­nite­ly can­not stay here, but I don't know where we could stay now," he lament­ed. Any­one will­ing to as­sist them can con­tact 366-6837.

Mean­while, Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said there were re­ports of street flood­ing, but the wa­ter cours­es were al­most filled. If the heavy show­ers con­tin­ue, how­ev­er, he ex­pects se­vere flood­ing in the Pe­nal/Debe area. Sam­my said emer­gency teams and coun­cil­lors were on alert and ready to ren­der as­sis­tance if need­ed.

A van is caught in debris from a landslide in Tabaquite as T&T experiences heavy rainfall.

Image via social media

Cou­va/Tabaquite cor­po­ra­tion wants help to clear land­slides

The Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC) is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istry of Works to clear land­slides and mud­slides in Bras­so. CT­TRC Chair­man Hen­ry Awong said that the heavy rains caused land­slides along the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road in the area of Mas­sa Junc­tion, Tele­maque Road that leads to Bras­so Ve­na­do and Los At­ta­jos and parts of Gran Cou­va. Awong said the biggest chal­lenge was to get the equip­ment in­to the af­fect­ed ar­eas to re­move the tons of de­bris.

Res­i­dents were ad­vised not to ven­ture out­doors in­to the af­fect­ed ar­eas. The chair­man said the au­thor­i­ties were work­ing as fast as pos­si­ble to clear the area. "Mamoral is drown­ing, right now I am mak­ing an ap­peal to the ODPM and the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment. Bridges  are cov­ered, the roads are im­pass­able, and we have hun­dreds af­fect­ed in Mamoral."

In Gran Cou­va, he said, there were mud­slides and land­slides. Awong de­scribed that area as a dis­as­ter.

"We are beg­ging for help from Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi."

Flooding in Caparo.

PHOTO Courtesy Paras Ramoutar

Ca­paro res­i­dents ma­rooned

Hun­dreds of res­i­dents in Ca­paro and sev­er­al vil­lages along the Ca­paro Val­ley Bras­so Road in Cen­tral were left ma­rooned be­cause of heavy flood­ing.

 Paras Ra­moutar, for­mer coun­cil­lor for the area on the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said he was wor­ried that flood­wa­ters would not sub­side any time soon. He said, "From ear­ly Sat­ur­day house­wives were seen scam­per­ing to pack gas tanks, wares, plants and pets from the over­flow­ing wa­ter."

Farm­ers, he said, will find it very dif­fi­cult to sus­tain them­selves for the Christ­mas sea­son as many of their crops were washed away. Ra­moutar said the rains may al­so cause an in­crease in the al­ready high prices of veg­eta­bles.

He said, "Ca­paro con­tin­ues to be the cen­tre­piece for con­tin­u­ous floods over 40 years, as one of the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors is the Ca­paro Riv­er which needs ma­jor hy­draulic works, all of which have been promised by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments over the years."