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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Floods in Port of Spain - 19th & 21st November, 2011

About two weeks ago, one Saturday morning, the rains came pouring heavy, rained for over an hour, and next thing we knew, our family's street was a river, and for a moment, the waters were almost at our gate. While we dragged a few heavy bags of sand inside, we saw the waters reside, but in it's wake, there was debris everywhere.

Then we heard the news that Maraval was hit the worst - walls came tumbling down, houses were flooded, some houses even fell apart. That was Saturday.

Monday afternoon, the rains fell again, and parts of Maraval went underwater, there was a mudslide down a mountain, a few cars ended up in the river. It was a disaster that no one had seen in years, if ever at all.

While clean-up began immediately, the story was told last week that two communities in the area have many homeless people now living in two shelters.

Today I met one of them. She's a young mother, who works at one of schools I teach at. Ironically her school was flooded badly on that Monday. And today I asked her 'So, you guys had excitement at the school last week?' She tells me how she lost her home, that it came down with the rain, and she's now living at the shelter.

I told her I hope everything gets resolved asap, which seemed as empty as anything. The truth is, I wish I could help her find a new home, and quick.

I got to put my thinking cap on.

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