Kalain Ho­sein

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The coun­try is brac­ing for more flood­ing, land­slides and gusty winds through to­mor­row morn­ing fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's del­uge, which sent rivers across Trinidad over their banks.

 At 7.30 pm, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) col­lat­ed more than 90 in­clement weath­er re­ports com­pris­ing land­slides, flood­ing, fall­en trees, and fall­en util­i­ty poles. Pe­ri­ods of rain­fall will like­ly con­tin­ue over the next 24-36 hours, re­sult­ing in fur­ther el­e­va­tion of the riv­er lev­els, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has said.

A man walks along the Bonne Aventure Main Road yesterday.

INNIS FRANCIS

 What hap­pened?

 An ac­tive trough sys­tem–an area of low­er-than-usu­al pres­sure at vary­ing lev­els of the at­mos­phere, which brings un­set­tled weath­er–is mov­ing across Trinidad and To­ba­go, bring­ing pro­longed rains, show­ers and thun­der­storms.

Af­ter a very wet No­vem­ber, with the last Ad­verse Weath­er Alert dis­con­tin­ued on Thurs­day, soils re­main very sat­u­rat­ed. Just af­ter mid­night, rain, show­ers, and thun­der­storms be­gan across T&T and fell for near­ly 12 con­sec­u­tive hours yes­ter­day. Since mid­night, up­wards of 100 mil­lime­tres of rain has fall­en across parts of the coun­try, with lo­cal­ly high­er to­tals across east­ern Trinidad.

Mul­ti­ple rivers, in­clud­ing St Joseph, Cipero, Aranguez, Ca­paro, North Oropouche, South Oropouche, Nar­i­va, Are­na, Guaracara, Mar­i­anne, Ca­roni and Gua­napo, all over­topped yes­ter­day. Ma­jor flash floods hit parts of Biche, Ca­paro, and Mara­cas-St Joseph, with parts of Ca­paro and Mamoral record­ing over five feet of wa­ter in some ar­eas.

In the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s Riv­er Lev­el Ad­vi­so­ry as of 7:30 pm yes­ter­day, the Ca­roni Riv­er was at 101 per cent ca­pac­i­ty at El Car­men while 84 per cent ca­pac­i­ty at Bam­boo #3, low­er in the riv­er basin. The North Oropouche Riv­er was at 75 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, the Ca­paro Riv­er was at 85 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, the Arou­ca Riv­er was at 36 per cent ca­pac­i­ty, and the Aripo Riv­er was at 55 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

Based on pre­lim­i­nary re­ports, the worst af­fect­ed area was cen­tral Trinidad, with over 32 in­ci­dents of flood­ing, land­slides, fall­en trees, fall­en util­i­ty poles, and a col­lapsed road at Gran Cou­va Main Road.

Ac­cord­ing to the ODPM, flood­ing oc­curred at the Ca­paro Bras­so Val­ley Road at Sharpe Road, San­ta Philip­pa, Durham Mills Road, and Ravine Sable Road ren­der­ing it im­pass­able. Flood­ing was al­so re­port­ed at Cou­va at Sun­rise Av­enue, Car­li Bay, along the Cou­va Main Road, and Fairview.

Fur­ther south, mul­ti­ple road­ways were in­un­dat­ed at Clax­ton Bay at Mt Pleas­ant Road, Spring Vale, Macaulay, as well as along Bonne Aven­ture Road, Gas­par­il­lo, Guaracara Road at Es­mer­al­da Junc­tion, Macaulay Park West in Cal­i­for­nia, and along the South­ern Main Road at Point Lisas.

In cen­tral Trinidad, at least six land­slides were re­port­ed at Bras­so Road, Bras­so, in the vicin­i­ty of the Po­lice Post, ren­der­ing the road­way im­pass­able; along Gran Cou­va Main Road be­tween La Ve­ga and Mas­sa, Preysal; Cameron Road at Gran Cou­va; along the Guaracara Tabaquite Road; and at Al­cin­dor Street, Flana­gin Town, as well as along La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do.

Land­slides al­so hit parts of east­ern and north­ern Trinidad, prompt­ing the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to in­def­i­nite­ly close the La­dy Young Road, one of the main routes in­to the cap­i­tal. The Man­zanil­la-Ma­yaro Road was al­so closed in­def­i­nite­ly as the road­way con­tin­ues to be erod­ed by flood­ing be­tween the 61 and 70-kilo­me­tre marks, while fur­ther south, a sig­nif­i­cant land­slide at Or­toire ren­dered the road im­pass­able.

King's Landing in Gasparillo flooded after heavy rainfall yesterday.

INNIS FRANCIS

 What can we ex­pect?

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice ex­tend­ed their Ad­verse Weath­er Alert (Yel­low Lev­el), which went in­to ef­fect at 5 am yes­ter­day, through 10 am to­mor­row. Their up­dat­ed alert is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon ex­plained, "Rain­fall and/or show­ers of vary­ing in­ten­si­ties are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue from ear­ly morn­ing to­mor­row (Sun­day, No­vem­ber 27), de­spite in­ter­mit­tent set­tled pe­ri­ods at times. There is still a 70 per cent (high) chance of heavy show­ers and thun­der­storms."

The TTMS main­tained the alert for both Trinidad and To­ba­go, stat­ing that the coun­try could be im­pact­ed by rain­fall greater than 25 mil­lime­tres, gusty winds ex­ceed­ing 55 KM/H, street/flash flood­ing, land­slides, and ag­i­tat­ed seas.

Hours af­ter mul­ti­ple rivers over­topped, the TTMS is­sued a yel­low-lev­el River­ine Flood Alert just af­ter mid­day. The alert specif­i­cal­ly is in ef­fect for the Ca­roni Riv­er, the North Oropouche Riv­er, the Ca­paro Riv­er, the Nar­i­va Riv­er and the Navet Dam/Reser­voir, the Or­toire Riv­er, and the South Oropouche Riv­er. It went in­to ef­fect retroac­tive­ly at 12 noon and re­mains in ef­fect through 10 am to­mor­row.

The TTMS said, "Af­ter this morn­ing's ac­tiv­i­ty, rain­fall ac­cu­mu­la­tions have caused the ma­jor riv­er lev­els across Trinidad to be near or above 80 per cent, and small­er wa­ter­cours­es at crit­i­cal lev­els. Pe­ri­ods of rain­fall will like­ly con­tin­ue over the next 24-36 hours, re­sult­ing in fur­ther el­e­va­tion of the riv­er lev­els." They added that run-off will be slow at high tide, ex­pect­ed to­day at 6:55 am and 6:24 pm.

Both alerts are yel­low lev­el, mean­ing mod­er­ate im­pacts are like­ly ac­cord­ing to the TTMS. Their guid­ance on their Mul­ti-Haz­ard Ear­ly Warn­ing sys­tem sug­gests the po­ten­tial for pos­si­ble in­juries at this alert's sever­i­ty lev­el, with be­hav­iour­al changes re­quired to en­sure safe­ty. There may be mi­nor prop­er­ty dam­age, with in­come-earn­ing tem­porar­i­ly dis­rupt­ed, and some com­mu­ni­ties may be af­fect­ed. Many took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press their ire at the alert lev­el, with those un­der mul­ti­ple feet of flood wa­ter stat­ing that this event was far from mod­er­ate.

 What should you do?

Though the alerts call for mod­er­ate im­pacts, sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties are threat­ened by sig­nif­i­cant flood­ing. Prepa­ra­tions to pro­tect lives, liveli­hoods, and prop­er­ty should be un­der­way. Ac­ti­vate your safe­ty plan, se­cure food, wa­ter, and med­i­cine for at least sev­en days in wa­ter­proof con­tain­ers, and pro­tect im­por­tant as­sets and doc­u­ments. Do not take un­nec­es­sary risks and fol­low the in­struc­tions of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The Met Of­fice adds the pub­lic should "not wade or dri­ve through flood­wa­ters, se­cure loose out­door items and live­stock, and mon­i­tor weath­er con­di­tions and of­fi­cial up­dates."

A link to cli­mate change?

 Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber are no­to­ri­ous for sig­nif­i­cant flood events in T&T, mark­ing the sec­ondary peak of the lo­cal wet sea­son. For Trinidad, No­vem­ber is the fourth wettest month of the year, while it is the wettest for To­ba­go. While de­vel­op­ment and in­suf­fi­cient drainage play a part in T&T's flood land­scape, the TTMS has not­ed that ex­treme rain­fall events are ris­ing.

In 2020, pre­sent­ing the new cli­mate nor­mal for 1990-2020, the TTMS ex­plained a larg­er per­cent­age of rain­fall at Pi­ar­co has come in the form of in­tense pre­cip­i­ta­tion in re­cent years. There has been a steady in­crease of rain ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in the high­est an­nu­al dai­ly rain­fall to­tals.

Ac­cord­ing to TTMS, six of the top ten years for the high­est one-day max­i­mum rain­fall to­tals at Pi­ar­co have oc­curred since 1990. Based on the records from the TTMS, in the last 35 years, 2020 tied 2008 and 1993 for the high­est num­ber of ex­treme sin­gle-day rain­fall events in T&T, with sev­en ex­treme rain­fall days.