East Tobago still marooned

UP TO late yesterday, the coastal villages of Charlotville and Speyside, both on the eastern tip of Tobago, remained cut off from the rest of the Island, with mudslides from last week’s thunderstorms still blocking the major road. Officials from the Tobago arm of the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) confirmed to Newsday that helicopters were flying constantly to and fro the marooned areas dropping off food supplies and fresh drinking water. No casualties had been reported in the Speyside and Charlotville areas but NEMA officials said there were many houses damaged by mudslides and flooding  and several destroyed.

NEMA officials also yesterday issued a bulletin on Tobago’s Radio Tambrin pleading with motorists not to head towards the Delaford and King’s Bay area unless in cases of an emergency, since the steady stream of traffic was impeding relief operations. NEMA officials who asked not to be identified also said that Dr Remy and Dr Melville were flown into the Speyside and Charlotville areas to render medical assistance and treat the ill, since these two areas were still cut off from the rest of the island. Electricity and telephone services were still reported to be down in Charlotville, Speyside, Delaford and King’s Bay, since several main electricity and telephone poles were pulled down by landslides. Newsday was told that vast quantities of perishable items including meat had long spoiled after electricity went, causing a need for NEMA to fly in basic food items to villagers who remained stranded.

Officials at the Scarborough General Hospital reported that victims Kershon, Kurlon and Kale-Ann Ferguson, were resting in a stable condition at the Surgical Unit of the hospital. Their mother Shirley Ferguson remains in serious condition at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, while Shirley’s eight-year-old daughter Kwesi Ann, who is at the Children’s Hospital in the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) in Mt Hope, was still warded in serious condition. The landslide claimed the lives of Tyrone Keston Mc Millan, 30, and Kathy-Ann Ferguson, 18. Mc Millan was crushed to death when his pick-up van was covered by the landslide while Ferguson died after being trapped in a house. Apart from ‘ground zero’ in the Eastern part of the sister Isle, the rest of Tobago had an air of normalcy yesterday, with Tobagonians spending the Eid-Ul-Fitr doing the normal Sunday chores. There were some tourists milling about the Scarborough area.