Kalain Ho­sein

Floods con­tin­ued for the third con­sec­u­tive day across Trinidad as heavy rains and thun­der­storms per­sist­ed.

Though the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice dis­con­tin­ued their Ad­verse Weath­er Alert on Wednes­day morn­ing, the in­clement weath­er was not fin­ished with T&T.

Flood­ing from Tues­day night con­tin­ued across parts of south and east Trinidad, with res­i­dents in Syne Vil­lage, Pe­nal, and var­i­ous ar­eas of San­gre Grande still ma­rooned. Though wa­ters grad­u­al­ly sub­sided in south­ern Trinidad through the morn­ing, flood­ing con­tin­ued in north­east­ern Trinidad due to con­tin­u­ous rain­fall.

By 11 am, ad­di­tion­al rain­fall be­gan to move across the is­land, with thun­der­storms af­fect­ing north­west­ern Trinidad dur­ing the af­ter­noon. Wind gusts ex­ceed­ing 40 km/h were record­ed, with rain­fall rates ex­ceed­ing 50 mil­lime­tres per hour, enough to trig­ger street/flash flood­ing in Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, a heav­ier clus­ter of show­ers and rain de­vel­oped east from the ear­ly af­ter­noon, with vis­i­bil­i­ty at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port drop­ping be­low one kilo­me­tre. On Wednes­day, across the north­ern half of Trinidad, up to 75 mil­lime­tres of rain­fall fell, caus­ing flood­ing in ar­eas that have yet to ex­pe­ri­ence flood­ing for 2023 to date. Res­i­dents of Ca­roni Vil­lage, who were al­ready on edge due to the Ca­roni Riv­er ris­ing to con­cern­ing lev­els, ob­served street and flash flood­ing on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

By the evening, ad­di­tion­al heavy rain­fall be­gan to move across wa­ter­logged ar­eas of San­gre Chiq­ui­to, San­gre Grande, Coalmine, and oth­er north­east­ern com­mu­ni­ties, rais­ing flood wa­ters once again in parts of Leemond Road, in the vicin­i­ty of Seecha­ran Trace, North Oropouche, as well as El Re­poso Road on the To­co Road. Flood­ing was al­so re­port­ed in Maus­cia Lands, Mau­si­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, some of the worst af­fect­ed ar­eas in­clude Nestor Vil­lage, La Tosca, and Jaras­ingh in Guaico Tamana; Sankar Trace in Bonair Road; Gheer­aw Trace, De Gannes, and Jawahir, Mosque, and Sam­lals­ingh flat in Cu­nar­ipo; Coryal; Lit­tle Co­ra; Shep­pard Lane, Lovers Ville, Veron­i­ca Boule­vard, Su­perville flat, and Bak­er Trace in Coalmine; Tantra Ter­races, Leza­ma Trace, Par­adise Lane, and Seecha­ran Park in San­gre Chiq­ui­to; Man­zanil­la Main Road; St. Marie Em­manuel Road; Cu­mu­to Main Road; Plum Mi­tan; North Oropouche; Leemond Road and San Louies Road, Guaico.

Since Sun­day, there have been more than 250 in­clement weath­er im­pact re­ports com­pris­ing flood­ing, land­slides, wind dam­age, fall­en trees, and af­fect­ed struc­tures. Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, there were 63 new flood re­ports with­in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day, with two in­stances of wind dam­age.

The Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion re­port­ed a land­slide, a fall­en tree, and one af­fect­ed struc­ture due to in­clement weath­er. With­in the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, there were nine re­ports of flood­ing. At the same time, with­in the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, there was onere­port of flood­ing from its Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP, the ef­fects of the in­clement weath­er are fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ed by il­le­gal land de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes di­vert­ing nat­ur­al wa­ter cours­es, de­for­esta­tion, re­claim­ing of land along river­banks, squat­ting and il­le­gal quar­ry­ing/log­ging, which blocks wa­ter cours­es and dis­places of wa­ter from nat­ur­al sources.

How­ev­er, the rain­fall has brought much-need­ed wa­ter to the na­tion’s four ma­jor reser­voirs. Though the Hol­lis reser­voir re­mains be­low the long-term av­er­age, its ca­pac­i­ty in­creased from 42.07 per cent to 47.74 per cent over the last week. All oth­er reser­voirs - the Ca­roni/Are­na Dam, the Navet Reser­voir, and the Hills­bor­ough Dam- were re­duced slight­ly over the pre­vi­ous week. The Ca­roni/Are­na Dam, at 66.98 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, and the Hills­bor­ough Dam, at 68.27 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, are above their long-term av­er­ages. Sev­en of the 13 wa­ter treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties im­pact­ed by in­clement weath­er have re­turned to ser­vice.