WATER HORROR

After heavy rain on Wednesday, hundreds of homes in the Barrackpore, Debe and Penal areas are surrounded by five feet of floodwater or more.

On Thursday, the flood horror continued. Roads remained impassable and thousands of people could not reach their workplaces. Children could not get to school and senior citizens had to be taken to higher ground.

Eighty houses on Wilson Road, which leads onto Clarke Road and into Penal, were marooned by floods. Residents used the lone tractor-trailer operating in the area to get out of their homes to buy food and groceries. Wilson Road and nearby roads were not visible as four feet of water turned them into a river.

Leon Sookoo of Digity Trace, Barrackpore, who works at Heritage, went out at 4.30am to drive to work. But at noon the water was still high, making the road impassible.

“It seems as if the water keeps rising, as the rains are falling elsewhere and draining into the Oropouche River and is overflowing on the roads,” Sookoo said.

He blamed the construction of the highway to Point Fortin for the backup of water on Clarke Road.

“Contractors have blocked the waterways with materials and they are destroying the mangrove which filters the water and takes it to sea.”

Joel Hakim, who lives in Patiram Trace, Penal, returned from work in Port of Spain on Wednesday at 7.15 pm and could not get through the floodwaters to reach home. He paid a wrecker $300 on Thursday morning to take his car home half a mile away.

Jaggan Deo, 80, was seen riding his bicycle through the floods.

“I have been living here for as long as I can remember, and I have never seen anything like this before. Wilson Road has never been under water to this extent.”

Deo urged people to take care of the country and stop littering, as this causes flooding.

Hemant Sooknanan, 21, of Digity Trace, said he hired a truck to get out of his home to buy food for his family.

“I live in a flat house and we are now living in the water. The children were placed on the beds and the tables until the floods go down.”

Several families in Mahadeo Trace and Ramdhany Trace, off Clarke Road, had to be rescued by trucks early on Thursday morning.

Sooknanan said he called the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) and other agencies on Wednesday night for help.

“Well, it is Thursday and we have not seen any of these agencies in our area.”

When the floodwater started rising fast, he said he called the Penal Debe Regional Corporation for sandbags, but was told he had to provide his own transport. “We need for the councillors to come around and look at the damage we are suffering.”