Clear storm drains to stop PoS flooding

THE EDITOR: Rain fell in Port-of-Spain around mid-day last Friday. The shower, moderate-to-heavy, lasted about 20 minutes. Downtown was flooded, as was Wrightson Road. There was internal damage to parked cars and cars caught in the water waist deep in some places. Incidentally, the tide was low when the rain fell, you can check that.

This is going to occur at least twice a week for the next five or six months. Are you all ready for that? The main storm drains under the city are large enough to walk through, and can, if unobstructed, easily drain off most rain and thunderstorms — that is a verifiable fact. However they are clogged with years of silt and garbage, to the extent that they even produce explosive methane in the dry season. That is also a verifiable fact. The storm water drains have not been cleared since the dry season of 1987, 16 years ago. That successful operation eliminated flooding for the following four to five years. That is a verifiable fact. Successive mayors, advised by successive city engineers insist that the drains are clear. The response to my ongoing and lonely campaign to free our capital from these recurring floods is “Peter O’Connor has an axe to grind.”

It appears that the fear of Peter O’Connor’s axe cutting through the bs is greater than the inconvenience and cost of the flooding. Why do we tolerate this ignorance and this flooding? Because the city engineers are “expert,” so when they deny common sense, we accept the cost and inconvenience and prattle about high tides and Acts of God? What is the position of NEMA to this regular flooding? Are they aware that their predecessor NERO cleared these drains in 1987, and that there was no street flooding for about three years following that. Does NEMA care?

What is the position of the EMA? Is chronic downtown street flooding not an environmental issue? What is the position of APETT — the professional engineers? Must they show solidarity with the city engineers? Or, if they care, can they lend weight to my contention? What is the position of DOMA, or the Chamber, or the businesses large and small, that are affected? Are they duped by the “expert” — ie engineers’ opinion that it’s all an Act of God? Do they pray for deliverance instead of demanding that the necessary work be done? What is the position of the media? Is their responsibility limited to photographs or filming of the flood waters? Well, they better get ready to take plenty pictures and video because plenty more to come!

What is the position of the Central Government? In their grandiose plans for the Port from Sea Lots to Invaders Bay? Is vision 2020 going to be a reversion to Venice? Will Wrightson Road be a canal and the Brian Lara Promenade a lake? Well, we all know the position of the City Council: They, on the advice of their engineers, in defiance of logic and the truth, insist the drains are not clogged, and the flooding in the past and to continue, is an Act of God? It is really astonishing that all of the above organisations and individuals can remain so unconcerned or so stupid in the face of an obvious and simple solution which has already been tried and proven successful. Twenty twenty is really a million years away.

PETER O’CONNOR
Cascade