Pregnant woman flees flood

And several other residents on posh Springland Avenue, who were also marooned in their houses, were forced to rely on a dinghy for transport when the deluge covered their street Tuesday night.

There was no sign of any relief effort, and no government representative, when Newsday visited the area yesterday.

Ryan Khan’s house was tightly shut. He, his pregnant wife, Nadia, and their three-year-old daughter, fled to his parents’ St Augustine home for refuge.

Newsday spoke to him via telephone from his neighbour Shirley Evelyn’s house. That was the furthest the vehicle could go on the flooded street.

Khan recalled the harrowing ordeal.

“Around midnight Tues-day I had to wake up my wife and take my sleeping daughter and leave the house. I had to risk driving out the flooded street to St Augustine.

“I didn’t want to be marooned in the house when my wife was ready to give birth.

“The last time Springland Avenue flooded out like this, we were stuck inside for three days.”

Khan said that was the third time the street flooded since he went to live in Valsayn South.

He said after the last flood in November 2005, residents signed a petition and took it to the Local Government Ministry but they have had no redress, so far.

Opposite the Khans, another neighbour Claire Foncette was trapped in her home. She lamented that it was her grand-daughter’s 12th birthday and she couldn’t go to Trincity to visit her.

Newsday also spoke to Foncette from Evelyn’s telephone.

Foncette said, “Since 1963 I have been living here, and the street always flooded when the Caroni River overflowed. Over the last three years it got worse and in the last flood the water came up the driveway and right up under the window.

“My husband bought a dinghy and takes people out the area if they have to go to the supermarket or have an emergency.” Foncette said they lent a friend the dinghy and ended up being marooned yesterday.

Evelyn, a retired Uuniversity of the West Indies librarian, was in tall boots when Newsday met her on Springland Avenue yesterday morning.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore. I got blue when I read that Works Minister Colm Imbert said there were no serious floods in the country, and that TT was ready for any. Whatever work they have done over the last six months has not been enough,” she said.

A worker at the Ministry of Works’ Drainage Unit at Curepe said the Springland Avenue residents experienced the “backwater effect” of the overflowing Caroni River.

“We had started reinforcing the embankment in the Double Bridge area nearby, and improving the channel sections. But we are looking at more proposals for improvement,” he said.