TALES OF SURVIVAL

AS THE nation slept Friday night, residents of the Greenvale Park housing estate in La Horquetta were faced with the ultimatum of either drowning in their homes or risking their lives against swift currents as rising flood waters, almost eight feet in height, began invading their homes.

Desperate to save themselves and their relatives, some residents rescued themselves, braving strong currents to tie a piece of rope to a nearby fence in order to pull themselves to safety.

Even as they tried to salvage mud stained pieces of furniture during clean-up operations yesterday, several residents took the time to speak with Newsday, recalling their ordeal when flood waters began to rise on Friday night.

A resident said that despite repeated calls to the authorities, they were marooned in their homes for as long as five hours, prompting some to remove ceiling tiles and seek refuge in the ceiling as living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms became deep lakes.

The resident said that after waiting for the authorities to arrive, they were forced to take matters into their own hands and rescue themselves.

"We realised they (the fire service) weren't coming and the water had already reached six feet deep. We had to stay inside the ceiling with our children and wait for the water to go down...but it wasn't going down.

"One of our neighbours, her son has a truck and she arranged for him to come and pick us up, but we had to cross the street. The water current was so swift we couldn't do that do it without being swept away, so myself and another guy from the house lower down decided to cross the street against the flood water with rope to help our families across. We tied it to a chain link fence and we rescued ourselves like that," the resident said.

The man added that through the raging waters, he could hear others breaking through the roof of their house to try and avoid the water. "We could hear knocking and banging against the steel roofs. We realised we could not leave the other people inside their homes so we came back and helped everyone who we could get to at that time," said the man who asked not to be identified.

"JUST HOLD ON TIGHT"

Newsday spoke to other residents of the community who said they were faced similar challenges trying to leave their homes on Friday night. Resident Denesh Lakhan said he was forced to seek refuge inside his ceiling with his pet dogs. After holding on to the steel beams of his roof, Lakhan said he began to lose hope.

"I really thought I was going to die. I couldn't get to dry ground until 5.30 am the next day. I stayed for five hours inside the ceiling. I really thought I was going, but eventually my neighbour came to help me."

Another resident Lisa Marie Alcantara said her home was completely destroyed by the flooding. She too had to venture into the ceiling with her children aged eight and nine. "There was water swirling below in our house and I told my children that whatever happened, just hold on tightly to the beams," Alcantara said.

According to Greenvale residents, a woman who was an amputee identified as Natasha Sankar died of hypothermia, shortly after she was rescued on Friday night.

Speaking yesterday, Red Cross team leader David Scobie said that damage to homes throughout the estate were extensive, but he added that the Red Cross was doing its best to support the work of the Arima Borough Corporation, the Office for Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) and other agencies in bringing relief to residents.

Scobie also confirmed that two emergency shelters were being operated to facilitate La Horquetta residents, with more than 100 people at one and approximately 88 people at the other.