Flooded with incompetence

How many times have I written here and – before I was granted the privilege of this column— elsewhere, about our chronic abysmal failure to prevent flooding after every heavy shower of rain? What is it that we do not understand about rainwater run-off and clogged watercourses?

I grant you that in the years between 1986, when our country was stalled by flooding which blocked major roads and highways for days, and 2017, where most of rural Trinidad has been inundated by stagnant, non-flowing water for several days, there have been other aggravations. Deforestation, “development,” and destruction have added to the flooding woes in our country. But these instances– caused by the stupidity of man (in the form of greedy developers and incompetent governments) and the “acks of Gord” (the sending, by God presumably, of showers of rain), come in the form of flash flooding rather than slowly rising and then enduring flood waters.

We are a people who claim to be religious but, really, we are drowning in ignorant superstition. None of the religions we purport to embrace condones any of the ignorance which guides—nay, rules—our lives. We are a people dishonest to the point of chronic criminality in all that we do and this includes wallowing in self-imposed ignorance even when we know we are wrong. And we are a people nasty to the core, dumping all our waste into the nearest watercourse. We can never admit our ignorance and our culpability even as our ignorance drowns us in stagnant flood waters.

Following the dreadful, island-wide flooding in 1986, which the PNM government excused as the annual ritual “ack of Gord”, John Humphrey declared it to have been “an act of damned ignorance.” And, of course, he was right. And I echo him today but add that our chronic flooding is an act of wilful damned ignorance. That 1986 flood, along with the floods of corruption we had endured with the PNM during our first OPEC flood of oil money, swept the once invincible PNM from office in December 1986.

And one of the first things that the new government did for the country was to organise a massive clean-up of the physical filth and the clearing of all waterways to prevent future flooding. The Contractors Association was called upon to clear the waterways on a voluntary basis, notwithstanding the fact that nearly every one of us was owed money for completed projects by the outgoing government. I was privileged to have worked on that campaign, and when it was done—all rivers, streams and underground drains were cleared, by volunteered equipment and manpower provided by local contractors. There was no input from the many foreign contractors who had fattened themselves here. One of those who cleared the watercourses was contractor Ashmead Ali, who has volunteered once again, putting his equipment to work for the people, doing what must be done to help citizens while Government said the flooding was no big thing!

And what was the result of that undertaking—local contractors cleaning up the country and its waterways? There was no major flooding in Trinidad for 1987, or in 1988 and 1989. Check the media from those times, and check the rainfall figures, and you will see no flooding, and standard levels of heavy rainfall. Then go to your churches as ask Gord why he did not act and send floods during that period.

So why have successive governments refused to acknowledge, far less implement this action again, say every two years? What is this fear, this rejection of success that hobbles our minds in this flooded land? This pathetic impotence reminds me of the story of the man who was going bankrupt. As each attempt at recovery failed, he began praying to Gord to win the lottery. Each week he failed again to win, and when almost all was lost, he cried out in anguish to Gord from his knees. “Oh Gord, how can you refuse to help me?” And a deep voice rumbled out of the sky: “Help me to help you, my son, buy a lottery ticket!”

The “ticket” needed to stop Gord flooding our country is the cleaning of the watercourses with the equipment and expertise we have throughout the country. And it is the winning ticket! What is this fear we harbour against this major success waiting to be achieved? Why is corporate TT so silent on pushing for an end to perennial flooding? I guess that most of the victims are uninsured, or the insurance industry would have spoken out? Or are they too profitable already to understand, or just too ignorant?

We spend millions of dollars every year, repairing flood damage– millions that could better serve our people if we could spend a little on prevention and the rest on development.