The fol­low­ing are some pre­cau­tions to take af­ter a flood:

° Avoid flood wa­ters; wa­ter may be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by oil, gaso­line, or raw sewage. Wa­ter may al­so be elec­tri­cal­ly charged from downed pow­er lines.

° Avoid mov­ing wa­ter.

° Be aware of ar­eas where flood wa­ters have re­ced­ed. Roads may have weak­ened and could col­lapse un­der the weight of a car.

° Stay away from downed pow­er lines, and re­port them to the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

° Stay out of any build­ing that is sur­round­ed by flood wa­ters.

° Use ex­treme cau­tion when en­ter­ing build­ings; there may be hid­den dam­age, par­tic­u­lar­ly in foun­da­tions.

° Ser­vice dam­aged sep­tic tanks and cesspools as soon as pos­si­ble. Dam­aged sewage sys­tems are se­ri­ous health haz­ards.

° Clean and dis­in­fect every­thing that got wet. Mud left from flood­wa­ter can con­tain sewage and chem­i­cals.

Floods and flash floods are the most com­mon and wide­spread of all nat­ur­al dis­as­ters next to fire, so knowl­edge and prepa­ra­tion is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to help keep loss­es to a min­i­mum.