Good response to the severe weather alert

THE EDITOR: I say God won some converts into believing he has a TT passport in his back pocket. Rough weather in torrents but the cyclone bypassed us. And it is kudos to all citizens and the Government for a great response.

The focus of this letter is really the sufferers whose homes flooded completely. Why? Because they live in flood and landslide-prone areas. Because water courses have been blocked causing unnecessary extra grief to hundreds more people. Or just the fact that climate change is here in TT and, regardless which political party is in power, you are still going to have knee-high water.

Can regional corporations prevent the blocking of water courses? Walls and houses cannot be erected in 30 minutes. If you see something, do something? Can these families be removed and given small pieces of state land elsewhere? It is the humanitarian thing to do. They cannot continue blocking rivers and affecting hundreds more lives. Help them.

Also of note were the efforts of WASA and the Ministry of Works and Transport to provide some extremely expensive water pumps in flood-prone areas. Can instances of reported sabotage be deemed political? How many rivers can be trenched how many times? Low-lying land is low-lying land.

Neither the PNM nor the UNC can stop the rain. Landslides happen. Roofs blow off and trees fall down. So let us all get rainy-season real. And what about rain-filled potholes? We have close to 1.4 million cars and heavy goods vehicles on the roads. Why can’t all potholes be fixed within 48 hours?

Then we have bridges falling down and garbage dumped into rivers? Insufficient staff and no expensive relevant equipment to fix things within hours of all complaints?

TT is not like out there in foreign where billions of dollars in property tax collections enable immediate fixing of everything.

Getting realistic about some things can prove difficult if there can be political mileage squeezed from each complaint.

So, one hand cannot clap? Whether it is PNM or UNC hands? Yes or no? Who can stop the rain from falling?

LYNETTE JOSEPH

Diego Martin