Arouca ‘dropped’ off the network

That sight earlier this month is all too common in Arouca whenever it rains.

What is being done? Nobody knows and it seems nobody cares.

It is as if all the calls made by Arouca residents have been “dropped” and Arouca is no longer on the national network.

As we are neglected when it comes to flooding, there are other important “calls” the parliamentary representative seems to have “dropped” as she continues to distance herself from her bounded duty to the people who put her where she is.

Arouca now has a crisis in education.

Students at the Five Rivers Secondary School went through a horrendous three terms at their new facility, with classes one or two days for the week since September 2015. Today, they are back on the old compound with incessant heat and OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) hazards lurking anywhere they walk.

The Arouca Government Primary and Anglican Primary Schools are beset with apparent unsolvable problems that would never have existed if those institutions were in a different constituency.

Calls to the MP have been “dropped”.

We don’t expect to hear a word from our MP on the plight of her constituents in Lopinot/Bon Air West, of which Arouca proper is the largest composition in votes and land space.

There will be a deafening silence on the repair of Lopinot Road, which is the only access for the villages of La Pastora, Surrey, Lopinot Settlement and Lopinot Village.

It’s getting to be a task for drivers to get in and out of the valley — far less the safety hazard of the narrow corners and the lurking cliffs.

The irony is that our goodly representative recently used her ministerial office to provide a grant for the Lopinot Spanish heritage event but nothing for the road visitors to the event have to manoeuvre on.

A few days ago, a man in Surrey Village was crushed to death under his vehicle. It took a fire appliance from Port-of-Spain a precious amount of time to get to the area to remove the vehicle.

Calls for a fire station, like everything else, have been dropped.

With so many dropped calls, people in Arouca will have to start looking for a new network — one that responds and is always accessible.

JEROME CHAITAN Arouca