MP: Mayaro not ready for floods 1

Mayaro MP Rushton Paray has expressed concern that the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation is not prepared to handle any emergency which may arise from the severe weather which is expected to bring heavy torrential rainfall to parts of Trinidad today.

The TT Meteorological Service, in a Facebook post yesterday, forecast an increase in showers between yesterday and tomorrow with peak rainfall and thundershowers today.

Paray yesterday said he had not received any reports of flooding in the sprawling constituency although heavy rains had been affecting the community since 4 am yesterday.

“When I left there was no evidence of any flooding, the rivers seemed well within their normal limitations so there is no reported flooding at this time,” Paray said, “But in terms of preparedness, the Mayaro regional corporation has only received about 30 per cent of their allocations for this fiscal year and they are starved for funding, so any sort of response to emergencies is going to be limited right now.”

He said the matter had been raised with Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan who had told him the ministry was engaged in a desilting programme of the major watercourses throughout Trinidad.

“Clearly they doing work outside of Mayaro and I told him look if you don’t clean our watercourses that heading out into the (Atlantic) ocean, where is that water going to go. It’s going to end up under the homes of residents in the constituency. So some effort has to be made to sorting out our watercourses here in Mayaro that is dumping into the ocean as a priority. And that is not being done,” he said.