Trinidad’s flood woes continuing

(Trinidad Guardian) She told us that hun­dreds of peo­ple are still trapped in their homes, how­ev­er, and that much of Clarke Road, Quinam Road, La Truce Road, and Naipalier Trace are still flood­ed out.

Shan­ti Boodram said on­ly high ve­hi­cles are able to ac­cess cer­tain roads in Pe­nal and since Wednes­day, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty has been low as many busi­ness­es and schools were af­fect­ed by flood­ing.

“Chil­dren are home and peo­ple can’t work. It’s ter­ri­ble right now,” she re­vealed.

With Christ­mas right around the cor­ner, many res­i­dents are feel­ing hope­less, as once again they have lost every­thing to floods.

“Peo­ple are cry­ing and don’t know what to do as they have lost every­thing,” Shan­ti Boodram says. “What peo­ple need the most right now, though, are food, wa­ter, clean­ing sup­plies and cloth­ing.”

Fol­low­ing two days of heavy rain­fall, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have teamed up with dis­as­ter man­age­ment units from the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions work­ing on the ground to re­spond to the cri­sis, bring­ing re­lief to res­i­dents, as well as as­sess the ex­tent of the dam­age.

The Met Ser­vices says the Or­ange Lev­el River­ine Flood Warn­ing re­mains in ef­fect for to­day. More heavy show­ers and pos­si­ble thun­der­storms are ex­pect­ed, and more street and flash flood­ing is pos­si­ble. In ad­di­tion, Spring tides are in ef­fect, which can ex­ac­er­bate con­di­tions at high tide.

Ma­yaro Po­lice state that the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road in the vicin­i­ty of the Mafek­ing Tem­ple re­mains im­pass­able to small and light ve­hi­cles. The Ca­roni Riv­er has over-spilled its banks in sev­er­al low ly­ing ar­eas and the Pe­nal-Debe re­gion con­tin­ues to be un­der wa­ter.

The ODPM’s Se­nior Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Co­or­di­na­tor, Jer­ry David, told us they are do­ing their best to help as many res­i­dents as pos­si­ble.

“Our main fo­cus is on the preser­va­tion of life, which is why we are putting so much em­pha­sis on get­ting equip­ment and re­sources in­to those ar­eas,” he as­sures. “As soon as the wa­ter abates, an army of per­sons will move in to give sup­port, whether it is in Mafekign or Pe­nal-Debe, or any of the ar­eas bor­der­ing the Ca­roni Riv­er.”

He adds: “We are pre­pared to re­spond as soon as we can get in, and as­sess and bring re­lief to all the many of our cit­i­zens who are suf­fer­ing be­cause of this cur­rent weath­er phe­nom­e­non.”