Cry from Madamas

The road in Madamas was made virtually impassable by pedestrian and vehicular traffic due to the heavy rains and winds that wreaked havoc in the Matelot/ Toco area at the same time.

Since Thursday, Gooding said that the TPRC and the ministry have done a lot of work to make the road passable by foot.

While it was still impassable by vehicle, a backhoe which was in the area, he said, broke down yesterday morning and the ministry was yesterday in the process of sending another piece of equipment to continue the work today.

Empathising with the people on the situation affecting the farming community, Gooding is hoping, he said, that sometime today the farming community could be made accessible to vehicles.

He said that Madamas, which has nine families, who were all assessed and accounted for, was not the only area affected under the jurisdiction of the TPRC. The roads to Paria and Brasso Seco, he said, were also affected by the inclement weather and works had to be carried out in those areas to make them passable again.

He noted too that due to landslides a number of electricity poles fell. He said that workers of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (TTEC) have also been busy replacing poles and he expects that as soon as the road is cleared in Madamas, TTEC will resumed working there as well.

“Things are happening but maybe not at the pace that residents want. We are handicapped by the road, but the roads will be cleared,” he said. Meanwhile, Robert Aqui of Madamas told Newsday yesterday that people were still marooned in their home and could not get fresh meat and food supplies. Perishables either spoiled or they had to eat out everything because there was no electricity since last Tuesday, he said.

“It appears that we are the lost souls of Trinidad,” he said.

One resident, Lawrence James, he said, lost his home after water and mud went into his house.

Another house is perched on hill looking like a statue, he said, in a perilous state.

Although Gooding said they were working in the area, Aqui said, “We have not seen any representative.

We never get any help.” He recalled making a claim for damage to his crops over two years ago and not even getting a feed back. “Whether we vote or not, it makes no difference,” he said.

People in Madamas, he said, are estate people. We produce food - cocoa, coffee, crystophine, plantains, bananas, tomatoes, sweet and hot pepper and other crops.

We feed the people,” he said.

Aqui said he lives at a mile and a half along the road, where he can now move about by foot, but he does not know the state of affairs of the people living at three and four miles along the road.