Baby rescued from raging flood waters in Pt Fortin

A seven-month-old baby boy had to be rescued from raging flood waters which swept through his Hollywood, Point Fortin home yesterday afternoon destroying every thing in its pathway when unprecedented levels of rain fell in the area. This coupled with high tides prevented the flood waters from receeding for several hours.

Residents said the heavy rains pounded the southern borough for at least three hours. Up to late yesterday evening many villagers throughout the borough remained marooned in their homes being surrounded by flood waters. Baby Ethan Soodeen and his young mother Maaltee Seedath were among 30 other households which suffered heavy flood damage. A still traumatised Seedath recalled that flood waters reached up to her neck as she remained trapped inside her home for nearly 30 minutes holding her screaming baby towards the ceiling of the house. Seedath said she held her baby boy up towards the ceiling to prevent him from drowning. The child’s father, Darren Soodeen, 35, arrived half an hour later and rescued both mother and child. “I keep thinking of how me and my baby could have died, we could have drowned if my husband did not come home in that time,” the still visibly shaken mother said attempting to hold back her tears. Seedath recalled that heaving rainfall started falling at about 2pm on Wednesday. The young mother said that the waters started coming through the front door of the family home. At that time she thought nothing of it until more water started entering the home rapidly. At the time baby Ethan was sleeping in his play pen. “I started to move appliances to high grounds thinking it would not have been much water, but within seconds the entire living room, bedroom and bathroom were filled with water. I rushed to take Ethan out of his playpen because I realised the waters was coming into his play pen,” the mother said.

Frightened and panicking with fear Seedath said that she telephoned her husband who was at the time on work and told him that the place was flooded out. She was fearing the worst. “I was panicking and crying. I climbed unto the bed thinking that we would have been safe on the bed, but I was wrong, the water covered the bed,” he explained. Seedath said that she could no long sit on the bed with her baby but now had stand on the bed with the floods waters reaching almost to her neck, “I was cold and trembling, I could feel parts of my body going numb, but I did not let go of my baby. I held him up to the ceiling to protect him, he was crying, I was crying and I kept telling him ‘everything is going to be ok baby boy’, mama is not going to let anything happen to you,” the mother told Newsday during an interview at the family Ragoonanan Avenue, Hollywood. She said that she was also screaming for help, but no one heard her.

At a nearby household Aaron Cardinal,31, and his common-law wife Amanda Ramnarinesing,22 were counting their loses. At the time of the flooding the couple who also has a seven month old baby was not at home. “We came home to see our home in water and everything floating. We lost everything, from appliances, to furniture to foodstuff,” he said. Thirty two homes were damaged by flood waters.