Grande businesses slowly recovering

Commercial activity in Sangre Grande is slowly returning after this weekend’s devastating floods, president of the area’s business association Ricardo Mohammed said.

More than 90 per cent of businesses along the Eastern Main Road had some sort of water damage. Anything at ground level was affected.

“Yesterday a lot business owners came out to try to salvage what they could. So have opened up this morning. A few of the essential businesses are opening,” he told Newsday in a phone interview.

On the whole though, he said the business chamber’s main duty was to put together relief items for the wider community.

“I’ve lived in Sangre Grande my entire life, and this is one of the worst floods in decades. We are now trying to provide basic food relief to different communities still under water and affected,” Mohammed said.

It’s mainly a community effort so far, and Mohammed said he had hoped that the area would receive more assistance from the offices in charge of disaster preparedness and management, as well as those in charge of national security.

“I’ve been out on the road for last couple days. There are many good Samaritans – individuals in vans trying to give relief.

"So far I haven’t spoken with chairman of the regional corporation, but I do see some activity going on,” he said.

While there were lines for people to put their name on relief lists, he was yet to see relief items actually being distributed.

“I think there needs to be better coordination,” he said.

Mohammed also said he had no reports of looting in the area.

“All businessmen are scared during times of natural disasters. But we haven’t heard of incidents of looting. We have a safety-zone group chat with our members as well as the police, so normally if anything happens we are alerted immediately.”