'Fed up ah de same thing, over and over'

Paolo Kernahan

The most recent spate of flooding brought to mind an old soca hit by Benjai – Ah fed up ah de same ting, over and over!

Year after year, the story's the same. Wth the arrival of the rains, communities in several parts of the country are submerged and citizens are left to fend for themselves. The authorities, whom we believe have some responsibility to respond, invariably fumble the ball.

Outright neglect, institutional indifference, public service rigor mortis, incompetence...we are abandoned to the ravages of the elements.

Every rainy season, this country does a dress rehearsal for a major weather-related catastrophe, a hurricane. On each occasion, major players in the cast are a no-show.

As rivers overran their banks in southern communities earlier this week, at least one family trapped in their home reportedly called on the fire services for rescue.

According to accounts, the strandees were told fire officers were instructed not to go into flooded areas with fire service vehicles.

Moreover, when the ODPM was contacted, they reportedly advised they couldn't go into the community without the fire services. This has to sound, to desperate people on the other end of the line, like someone is having a laugh at their expense.

Once again, it was ordinary citizens who had to pitch in.

The ODPM has long emphasised that their role isn't one of rescue and relief, but co-ordinating the agencies responsible for those activities. On the evidence, they aren't particularly competent in that area either.

In late November, when residents of Bamboo settlement were devastated by flooding it was days before anyone in authority put in an appearance.

Ordinary citizens cobbled together disaster relief efforts with whatever resources they had on hand.

Faris Al-Rawi and Rohan Sinanan showed up when the ground was bone dry; their presence purely political.

They were despatched by the globe-trotting PM to absorb cuss from beleaguered residents, presumably with the ill-conceived objective of diffusing a burgeoning PR headache.

In 2018, vast swathes of central Trinidad were drowned after a sustained downpour.

People slept on rooftops as floodwaters rose high enough to lap at eaves. Victims could only count on the kindness and conscience of other citizens who rallied to rescue those affected. There were massive drives to provide food relief.

It was one of those rare moments that make you feel proud to be a citizen. The PM commended our people for their civic-minded spirit and actions.

Naturally, he was reticent on the abject failure of the state and its varied lifeless limbs to do what's expected of them , to perform as people are paid to in that circumstance.

Catastrophic, disruptive, and destructive flooding will increase in regularity; what will remain unchanged is the state's non-response to such calamity.

If someone spills a cup of tea, people in Port of Spain are up to their ankles in murky water. Traffic becomes snarled, and transportation out of the sodden city is chaotic to impossible.

A downpour of 30 minutes or less is enough to convert Valsayn, St Augustine, and other communities along the East-West corridor into wetlands.

Citizens in central and south Trinidad are almost assured of loss-incurring floods with heavy rains; back-to-back flooding in the same communities is common enough to diminish peoples' quality of life.

When I worked as a journalist a lifetime ago there were certain areas guaranteed to be underwater if a corbeau took a bathroom break mid-flight. It was so before my time and by all grim indications it will be so long after I am dust.

Joint select committees, commissions of inquiry, government-appointed 'public distraction teams'-what's the point of these knee-jerk theatrics?

Through all the exhaustive interrogation of our challenges in different ways, we learn nothing from our failures - other than how to repeat them and deflect.

Wild weather is an unavoidable feature of life on Earth. Our traditional 'response' to flooding suggests we only just landed here.

Drainage hasn't kept pace with development; the same concrete channels and natural watercourses are expected to convey increased run-off from more housing and carved-up hillsides safely to the sea.

When severe flooding events do occur, more often than not the authorities responsible for managing these crises appear to be caught off guard. There are always deficiencies in equipment or manpower but an infinite supply of excuses and blame.

Flooding happens everywhere in the world. What follows in some other countries, though, is accountability and action. In TT we just suffer the same cycle over and over.