Flood victims still waiting on compensation

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Five weeks af­ter their homes were wrecked by floods, some res­i­dents of Bar­rack­pore, Pe­nal and Wood­land are yet to be com­pen­sat­ed.

For them, there will be no Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions.

Chair­man of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the Cor­po­ra­tion con­duct­ed an ini­tial dam­age as­sess­ment of house­holds and farm­ers af­fect­ed by the re­cent floods which was passed on to the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

The Cor­po­ra­tion’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit reg­is­tered close to 1,000 flood vic­tims.

“The re­al is­sue of fi­nan­cial sup­port for ap­pli­ances and for ar­eas where peo­ple would have lost in­come, I don’t have any in­for­ma­tion that those were met,” said Ma­haraj

He has been get­ting calls from burgess­es ask­ing when they will be com­pen­sat­ed.

“Things have been far too tardy,” he said

Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox said on De­cem­ber 12, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment “emailed the spread­sheet of names of fam­i­lies af­fect­ed” and the min­istry is pro­cess­ing these claims.

“If they are en­ti­tled, I ex­pect pay­ment to be made in Jan­u­ary,” she said.

Dou­ble woes

For flood vic­tims Dolchan Chan­drab­han and his ail­ing wife Glo­ry, this fes­tive sea­son is dou­bly sad.

Still reel­ing from last month’s dev­as­tat­ing floods, Dolchan’s one wish for Christ­mas is that Glo­ry, 56, re­cov­er from stage four breast and bone can­cer.

The Chan­drab­hans were among hun­dreds af­fect­ed by the del­uge which left res­i­dents strand­ed in their homes and shut down busi­ness­es, prompt­ing lo­cal au­thor­i­ties to de­clare the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion a dis­as­ter zone.

How­ev­er, they have been left in lim­bo as they await com­pen­sa­tion af­ter los­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of valu­ables, house­hold ap­pli­ances, fur­ni­ture, an­i­mals and crops.

On Tues­day, the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties to hear from flood vic­tims how they have been cop­ing as Christ­mas ap­proach­es.

Many said they have been strug­gling to get back on their feet, while oth­ers ad­mit­ted their homes are still in dis­ar­ray.

In some homes stoves, fridges, wardrobes, beds and freez­ers were stacked on bricks and makeshift wood­en racks to pre­vent them from get­ting wet.

There were no dec­o­ra­tions, no smell of fresh paint or yards be­ing cleaned – all signs of Christ­mas prepa­ra­tions.

Some of the af­fect­ed res­i­dents are now con­sid­er­ing out of their flood-prone com­mu­ni­ties.

“It has not been easy,” an emo­tion­al Dolchan said, as he re­count­ed his fam­i­ly’s or­deal while sit­ting on the stair­case of his Nanan North Trace, Bar­rack­pore, home.

Dolchan has been fac­ing two ma­jor chal­lenges. First, he had to deal with the news of Glo­ry’s can­cer.

“It floored me…af­ter liv­ing to­geth­er for 38 joy­ous years,” he said.

When Glo­ry’s health start­ed to de­te­ri­o­rate in Ju­ly and she be­came bedrid­den, Dolchan quit his job as a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer to look af­ter her.

In No­vem­ber, he faced an­oth­er up­hill bat­tle with the flood. He said in less than 30 min­utes his yard was un­der three feet of wa­ter.

The cou­ple were ma­rooned on the up­per floor of their wood­en home for four days un­til the wa­ter sub­sided.

“We were trapped in­side the house,” Dolchan, 60, said, adding that no one came to help, pro­vide ham­pers or as­sess their loss­es.

Dolchan said Christ­mas is the last thing on his mind.

“I can’t study that. The con­di­tion Glo­ry is in, tears does fill my eyes when I walk in­to the room and see she ly­ing down on the bed,” he said.

His life sav­ings were used up dur­ing the six months he spent tak­ing care of his wife, and the cou­ple now sur­vives on Glo­ry’s month­ly $2,000 dis­abil­i­ty grant.

“I wish God could trans­fer Glo­ry’s pain to me, so her suf­fer­ing would be no more. At times it is un­bear­able. I can’t imag­ine what she is go­ing through,” he said, shak­ing his head from side to side.

De­spite his dif­fi­cul­ties, Dolchan said his faith re­mains strong and he de­clared that with God, all things are pos­si­ble.

Christ­mas just an or­di­nary day

Pen­sion­er Daisey John has lived through many floods in her 75 years but she said last month’s dis­as­ter was the scari­est.

“I have nev­er seen so much wa­ter in my life. Out­side was like a sea. I was scared to death,” said the three-time can­cer sur­vivor who had to flee her Moolchan Trace, Pe­nal, home.

When John re­turned the fol­low­ing day, her cup­boards were wa­ter-soaked and one of the bed­posts was de­stroyed.

Just six weeks be­fore the flood, she buried her broth­er and moth­er who died days apart. First, her broth­er died of a heart at­tack while stand­ing on the side of the road, then her moth­er passed away af­ter suf­fer­ing from can­cer.

John said her daugh­ter wants her to leave the flood-prone com­mu­ni­ty and move in with her in Freeport but she is re­luc­tant to give up her hum­ble home, stat­ing she likes the soli­tary life.

“I get so used to this (flood)… you would not be­lieve it. I can’t run from it. There is noth­ing I can do again to pre­vent that wa­ter from get­ting in there,” she said, point­ing to her home.

She said one so­lu­tion is to de­mol­ish the house, back­fill the land and re­build.

“But I don’t have mon­ey for that. It would cost a for­tune,” she said.

John didn’t sub­mit her name for flood re­lief. All she re­ceived were two small ham­pers.

She ad­mit­ted that when­ev­er the skies turn grey or black, she is over­come with fear and anx­i­ety would over­come her body.

“You keep think­ing if the next flood will be worse than the last. You see on this street, we don’t have good drainage for the wa­ter to run off. That is the main prob­lem.”

Still griev­ing over the deaths and try­ing to cope with the flood, John said she has no plans of cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas.

“For me, I would spend Christ­mas like any or­di­nary day,” John said.

Year of suf­fer­ing

This past month has been dif­fi­cult for 52-year-old Ramdeo Ram­sawack who lost up­ward of $20,000 in fur­ni­ture and house­hold ap­pli­ances in the flood.

It took Ram­sawack, a labour­er, years to fur­nish his home Kan­hai North Street, Bar­rack­pore. He Ram­sawack had to stretch his dai­ly $200 salary.

When the flood swept away his world­ly pos­ses­sions, Ram­sawack went in­to a state of de­pres­sion.

“I felt emp­ty in­side,” he said.

To make mat­ters worse the fa­ther of two did not sub­mit his name to the Cor­po­ra­tion for com­pen­sa­tion and his loss­es were not as­sessed.

“It has been a con­stant strug­gle since last month. Work re­al slow. This Christ­mas is shap­ing up to be my worst ever. What is there to en­joy when your place is in a mess and you have noth­ing nice to eat or drink in your house?”

Ram­sawack’s home was one of the hard­est hit by the floods. Wa­ter from a near­by riv­er and drain en­tered his home.

He feels it would be bet­ter to re­lo­cate and has be­gun hunt­ing for a piece of land.

“I see a piece of land in Bar­rack­pore for $120,000 but I have to save or take a loan,” he said

Ram­sawack is hop­ing that God will smile on him in 2025 be­cause this year has been filled with suf­fer­ing and strug­gles.