Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The man seen strand­ed on the bon­net of his par­tial­ly sub­merged ve­hi­cle dur­ing Thurs­day’s se­vere flood­ing on Trantrill Road, St Au­gus­tine, has been found safe. Af­ter hours of search­ing, emer­gency of­fi­cials con­firmed the dri­ver, of Asian de­scent, had re­turned home and was lat­er lo­cat­ed at a rac­ing pool in Tu­na­puna.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said she was re­lieved the dri­ver had es­caped un­harmed. His ve­hi­cle had been swept away by strong flood cur­rents ear­li­er in the day, prompt­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse by the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Fire Ser­vice and Po­lice. Of­fi­cers traced him us­ing the ve­hi­cle's num­ber plate, iden­ti­fy­ing him as a Pasea Road res­i­dent.

“I am re­lieved the in­di­vid­ual is un­harmed,” Ameen said. She urged the pub­lic once more not to risk dri­ving through flood­wa­ters and thanked first re­spon­ders, vol­un­teers, and NGOs such as Se­waTT for their ef­forts.

Ameen con­firmed that stag­nant wa­ter still af­fects com­mu­ni­ties across the East-West Cor­ri­dor, in­clud­ing Val­sayn South, Re­al Spring, Spring Vil­lage and Ca­roni Vil­lage. Sand­bags and hot meals are still be­ing dis­trib­uted. She en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to do­nate sup­plies such as mops, brooms, clean­ing prod­ucts and food, and ad­vised them to co­or­di­nate do­na­tions through their Mu­nic­i­pal Dis­as­ter Man­agers for safe­ty and ef­fec­tive­ness.

Guardian Me­dia cap­tured the wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed video of the dri­ver perched atop his car as flood­wa­ters surged through Trantrill Road. The footage caused con­cern, trig­ger­ing an ur­gent search.

Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor Ter­rence Max­im said the sit­u­a­tion had ap­peared dire through­out the day. “We’re hop­ing against all hope that this turns out to be a res­cue and not some­thing more trag­ic,” he said be­fore the dri­ver was lo­cat­ed. He warned that six inch­es of fast-mov­ing wa­ter can sweep a ve­hi­cle off the road, and some parts of Trantrill Road drop six feet be­low sur­face lev­el, mak­ing res­cue ef­forts ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous.

“I’m telling peo­ple, do not ven­ture in­to Trantrill Road,” Max­im said, warn­ing that the Ca­roni Basin—from St He­le­na to Ibis Gar­dens—re­mains un­der threat from ris­ing wa­ters.

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer for the North­ern Di­vi­sion, Noel Stew­art, echoed these warn­ings. “All those who be­lieve they can de­fy the laws of na­ture and take risks with their lives will be in for a harsh sur­prise,” he said. “We want all fam­i­lies to re­turn home safe­ly.”

Stew­art urged rel­a­tives to talk to their loved ones about the dan­gers of flood­ed roads. “Do not take chances with your lives,” he said.

Lo­cal res­i­dent Bran­don Boodram, who as­sist­ed with the search, de­scribed con­di­tions ear­li­er that day as treach­er­ous. “If the riv­er comes down again, the cur­rent will be strong,” he said. “Some peo­ple don’t even know how to walk through that safe­ly.”

The Min­istry con­firmed it will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.