South store owners count lo$$es

Larry Rampersad, who owns Matrix for Men clothing store, told Newsday he expected his losses to run into thousands of dollars. He said some clothes got soaked when the rain began to fall heavily, flooding the store.

Rampersad, who has been renting the boutique for the past seven years, said: “For the past three years we have been suffering with this flooding problem. On Monday I came to work and met my boutique flooded. This morning I was greeted with approximately four inches of water.”

Jean Charles, who operates another clothing store in Imperial Plaza, said she was forced to shut her doors to the public.

“This morning when I turned up for work,” Charles said, “Water was gushing down the walls.”

In the low-lying Penal road districts, some roads were covered in water. Penal Debe Regional Corporation chairman Allan Sammy said the Penal Rock Road and Ajodhansingh Trace were under water. Fyzabad MP Chandresh Sharma said his constituency had identified churches, schools and temples as emergency shelters to deal with massive flooding.