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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Widespread flooding in Bamboo, Caroni

by

813 days ago
20221128

SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

There was wide­spread flood­ing and dev­as­ta­tion in sev­er­al ar­eas yes­ter­day, as the St Joseph and Ca­roni Rivers over­topped their banks, af­fect­ing Bam­boo #2, Val­sayn South and La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni.

In Val­sayn South, res­i­dents were try­ing to cope with the third straight day of flood­wa­ters in their homes.

Moth­er of two, Sab­ri­na Be­dassie, said she left her Rovess Dri­ve home with her two young chil­dren af­ter see­ing flood­wa­ters ris­ing on Fri­day.

“Right now, by me have win­dow height wa­ter, it could get to sev­en feet of wa­ter if the high tide comes up,” Be­dassie said.

Her chil­dren are six months old and two years old.

While she was speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, her hus­band was wad­ing in­to the murky wa­ters to check on the house.

Be­dassie said a check on Sun­day con­firmed her worst fears.

“It is very dif­fi­cult when you know you lost every­thing and you have to start back from scratch, house­hold items gone, wares prob­a­bly float­ing in­side, TV gone, fridge gone, freez­er gone, it’s re­al­ly re­al­ly hard when you have to start back from scratch,” Be­dassie said.

She said she was due to start a new job on Tues­day but with the floods, she would not be able to show up.

Even her in­fant son’s crib was float­ing in the house.

“It re­al­ly hard when you get this kind of wa­ter, no­body help, this is about the sixth time we get wa­ter and no­body help, no gro­ceries, no food items, no house­hold items, not even dis­in­fect,” Be­dassie said.

A short dis­tance away, Lekha Pit­ty was sit­ting on a plas­tic chair on the road­way, un­der an um­brel­la as more rain came down. She said it was more com­fort­able for her, as the floods have not sub­sided.

The home she shares with her grand­moth­er has been un­der wa­ter since Sat­ur­day.

She said her grand­moth­er is cur­rent­ly hos­pi­talised and has not been told of the dev­as­ta­tion she is com­ing home to face.

“We don’t want to say any­thing be­cause we don’t know how she will take it,” Pit­ty said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Nicole Sookhai, said the sit­u­a­tion is be­com­ing hope­less.

“We haven’t slept in 24 hours, the wa­ter is about three feet high in­side the house,” she said.

Sookhai said her fam­i­ly’s re­frig­er­a­tor and stove had stopped work­ing. Their beds were soaked and al­though the sit­u­a­tion was dire, she said her fam­i­ly was stick­ing to­geth­er.

“This is ac­tu­al­ly worse than 2018, the wa­ter is high­er,” Sookhai said.

“We keep wait­ing for the wa­ter to sub­side so we can pump out the wa­ter but the wa­ter just keeps ris­ing, so there is no hope, it’s nev­er-end­ing for us,” she added.

A short dis­tance away in Bam­boo #2, one man who gave his name on­ly as Frank said his home was cov­ered by flood­wa­ters.

“Since yes­ter­day, the river­bank burst on Mo­han Street, we tried to fix it but we could not do any­thing so we start­ed to move out every­body, all the old peo­ple on Tem­ple Street,” Frank said.

He has been pa­trolling the streets in his makeshift boat, a rem­nant of his res­cue ef­forts af­ter the 2018 floods that dev­as­tat­ed his com­mu­ni­ty.

“I build this boat to help out peo­ple, that is my job right now, is for every­body,” Frank said.

While Guardian Me­dia was in the com­mu­ni­ty, Frank and oth­er men in boats were go­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty, bring­ing some res­i­dents out and tak­ing sup­plies in for those who opt­ed to re­main in their homes.

Is­sac Mo­hammed, 65, who lives on Tem­ple Street, said he left his home three times on Sun­day be­cause of the ris­ing flood­wa­ter.

“My wife tried to get in a boat that the guys brought up in­to our garage and fell off, it was re­al­ly ter­ri­ble, right now wa­ter in my house cov­er­ing my counter tops,” Mo­hammed said.

He said she was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex and treat­ed for mi­nor in­juries.

Mo­hammed said his fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances were de­stroyed in the 2018 floods.

“I did not get any com­pen­sa­tion or help then, I don’t know if I will get any now,” he said.

In La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni, Don­na said when the flood­wa­ter start­ed en­ter­ing her home on Sun­day af­ter­noon, she was caught by sur­prise.

“It’s 18 years I liv­ing here and I have nev­er seen a drop of wa­ter en­ter my house…when it start­ed to come up, it hap­pened so sud­den­ly that we didn’t get time to do any­thing ex­cept grab the chil­dren and get to high­er ground,” she said.

Don­na said the res­i­dents had not seen or heard from any­one in au­thor­i­ty and were help­ing each oth­er out.

She said the MP for the area, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, was on site around 1 am yes­ter­day, as­sist­ing fam­i­lies out of their homes and in­to the near­by Vish­nu Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, which is a des­ig­nat­ed shel­ter.

Al­though the wa­ter in her home had sub­sided, many of her neigh­bours were not as lucky.

Mar­lon Gaskin and sev­er­al oth­er young men took our news team on a tour of the area in a boat. They had been us­ing the small ves­sel, which does not have an en­gine, to take sup­plies to those trapped in their homes by the flood.

Gaskin’s own home was most­ly spared, as it is built on stilts.

In Col­lege Road, St Au­gus­tine, Saman­tha Bridge­lal said her home had been flood­ed since Fri­day.

“My home is cov­ered with wa­ter, I haven’t been able to take a show­er be­cause my tank al­so float­ed away, this morn­ing peo­ple from the area res­cued us with a boat and brought us out to low­er wa­ters,” Bridge­lal said.

Ap­peal­ing for as­sis­tance, she said her ap­pli­ances were soaked and float­ing in­side her home.


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