We must all work to prevent flooding

THE EDITOR: Rains bring flooding every year in different parts of Trinidad. In 1993 business places in the downtown area of Port-of-Spain as well as City Gate and South Quay, were inundated an October afternoon when a great storm burst upon the north-western peninsula. Some businesses suffered additional property damage and inventory loss on the back of losses occasioned by the 1990 insurrection, at the same time having to meet VAT commitments, while engaging re-financing to sustain cash-flows at adequate levels. Since that time the authorities seem to have been consistent, at least for affected areas in Port-of-Spain, in keeping drains clear of debris, up-stream and down-stream, so that destructive flooding has not recurred in spite of heavy rainfalls. Backhoes have been shovelling accumulated material in the East Dry River.

The perennial effort has meant that the risk of water getting dammed-up anywhere that affects the area, is reduced in significant proportions. Thanks should be given to those responsible for instituting and maintaining the programme.  I wish this letter could convey to them the gratitude of many who have benefited from their work. I wish it also would serve to recommend some things. In the first place, the work should be kept up and its rationale should be made known. Secondly, what might appear every year throughout the country to be haphazard flooding occurrences, really show the lack of an extensive and co-ordinated maintenance drive. Without preventive measures, heavy flooding will occur and hurt people all the time whereas flooding can be pre-empted or the very high risks of serious flood countered. Obviously, de-forestation everywhere in the country is one major contributing factor, another is un-terraced hillside farming. It simply should not be that serious flooding must occur in order for something to be done at last and then only here or there. There are so many jobs and job-types to be made. The work should be the normal run of municipal co-ordination and activity and without the over-sight of the Cabinet and Prime Minister. Can there be a flood relief fund?

In the third place, flooding brings water and perhaps mud, which might cause inconvenience and property and financial damage and which might increase insurance, devaluation and other costs. However, as anyone who has suffered in a flood will tell you, it will spread bacteriological contamination, untreated sewage and refuse indiscriminately. Minor flooding is widespread usually with no damage or direct loss of life; vehicles pass through the water, mud and later dust carries it off, so wash streets, drains, vehicles etc. Finally, the concentration of sewage networks and uncollected refuse is great in urbanised areas, endangering the many homeless who ply the streets for bodily repose and relief as well. Public health (not to mention personal security) and constitutional rightness prove how the homeless have no right in the use of streets and sidewalks other than for their true public purposes and, why we should not leave the homeless continually endangering the public health or their own.

ELIAS  I  GALY
Maraval