‘We were trapped’

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Sta­cy Ha­jarie had moved in­to her un­cle’s home in Bonasse Vil­lage, Ce­dros, just two weeks ear­li­er. On Sat­ur­day, she watched help­less­ly as flood­wa­ters cov­ered her fur­ni­ture and oth­er be­long­ings in the yard, which she had not yet had time to se­cure.

Ha­jarie was among scores of res­i­dents in parts of Ce­dros af­fect­ed by flood­ing af­ter heavy thun­der­storms swept through the area. She said wa­ter rose around the home so quick­ly that there was lit­tle time to save her be­long­ings.

Wip­ing away tears, she said: “Be­fore we could come out­side to try to sal­vage any­thing, we just saw the wa­ter com­ing from both the back and the front. Like I said, the wa­ter come up so fast it was hard to try to pull up any­thing, and it was al­ready com­ing all to the side the house.”

She said she lost al­most every­thing, in­clud­ing her lap­top and fur­ni­ture.

“Every­thing, ex­cept the clothes in­side the house,” she sobbed.

Ha­jarie said her un­cle, Shayam Ha­jarie, re­turned home to save the dog, which was tied up and try­ing to stay afloat as the wa­ter rose.

“We were trapped in­side,” she said.

Oth­er res­i­dents in Bonasse Vil­lage re­called strug­gling to keep flood­wa­ters out of their homes.

De­scrib­ing the or­deal as ter­ri­ble, Eileen Toolsie, 83, a can­cer pa­tient, said rel­a­tives and a friend used buck­ets, scoops and brooms to re­move wa­ter from her prop­er­ty.

“Back, front, every­thing was wa­ter, wa­ter, wa­ter,” she said.

Cami­ra Har­ry­lal, 46, said drains over­flowed and wa­ter en­tered her kitchen, leav­ing her oven sub­merged. Wa­ter al­so seeped be­neath the tiles.

She said it was the first time in two years that she had ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing on this scale, and that some of her be­long­ings were dam­aged.

“Thank­ful­ly it was not that bad that I could com­plain. But yes, it was bad in­deed be­cause just hav­ing dirty wa­ter in your home is a lot.”

Carl Ed­wards said he was asleep when his two chil­dren alert­ed him to the flood­ing. With­in 15 min­utes, wa­ter had en­tered his prop­er­ty, forc­ing him to quick­ly raise his wash­ing ma­chine to pre­vent dam­age.

Imam Kahleel Emamdeen, his wife and their three young chil­dren re­turned home to find their house flood­ed. No ap­pli­ances were dam­aged, but the fam­i­ly’s fur­ni­ture was soaked.

Blam­ing poor drainage, Emamdeen said flood­ing was a con­tin­u­ing prob­lem in the com­mu­ni­ty and ap­pealed to the au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress it.

He said all the wa­ter in Bonasse flowed in­to a sin­gle drain, which filled with sea­wa­ter at high tide, caus­ing rain­wa­ter to back up in the vil­lage.

“We need an­oth­er out­let for the wa­ter to run be­cause if rains start to fall again we fear­ful that flood will come. We need some­thing to be done ur­gent­ly even if we have to get a pump house by the bridge.”

Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said heavy rain and high tide caused runoff to back up in Bonasse and Fuller­ton, af­fect­ing be­tween 60 and 75 house­holds.

He said wa­ter en­tered about 15 homes, while oth­er house­holds ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing in their yards. Five res­i­dents need­ed help pump­ing wa­ter from their homes.

The Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit, the MP’s of­fice and oth­er agen­cies as­sist­ed with clean-up ef­forts, Teelucks­ingh said. Af­fect­ed res­i­dents were al­so pro­vid­ed with clean­ing chem­i­cals and gro­ceries.

He said blocked out­falls had been cleared to al­low flood­wa­ters to flow in­to the sea, but more work was need­ed to ad­dress long­stand­ing drainage prob­lems.

“It is some­thing we in­her­it­ed,” he said.

The main out­fall in Bonasse will be ex­am­ined by en­gi­neers, Teelucks­ingh said. A flood­gate there was re­moved in 2016 or 2017, and au­thor­i­ties were now con­sid­er­ing ways to bet­ter con­trol the flow of sea­wa­ter and runoff. He said they would al­so ex­am­ine a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion in Fuller­ton.

Some drainage chan­nels re­mained bad­ly ob­struct­ed and would need to be cleared to re­store the free flow of wa­ter in­to the sea, he said. Work was con­tin­u­ing, and last year the Min­istry of Works car­ried out work in Ica­cos.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment yes­ter­day.

On Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er, the min­istry is­sued a state­ment say­ing the sit­u­a­tion was be­ing mon­i­tored and teams were on the ground as­sist­ing res­i­dents.