While last week­end’s down­pours brought flood­ing to some parts of South Trinidad, many com­mu­ni­ties were spared the dev­as­ta­tion of murky wa­ters in­vad­ing their homes. Still, soaked roads and swollen wet­lands served as a sober­ing re­minder of what po­ten­tial­ly lies ahead as the wet sea­son sets in.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment crews in Pe­nal and Ma­yaro were out yes­ter­day as part of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s Flood Mit­i­ga­tion and Shel­ter Man­age­ment 2025 ex­er­cise, which was launched last week.

With mi­nor flood­ing al­ready re­port­ed in Ma­yaro, Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (MR­CRC) chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er urged all cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­gramme. In some cas­es, how­ev­er, he said landown­ers were re­luc­tant to grant es­sen­tial equip­ment ac­cess to some ar­eas via their prop­er­ties.