By GARY DARMANIE Friday, July 30 2010

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FLOODED OUT: A car parked in the basement of the Works and Transport Ministry's Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain office is partially submerged in flood...

WHILE the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) and various regional corporations were looking to coordinate with the Ministry of Works and Transport, to provide disaster relief for persons affected by heavy rains yesterday, the ministry was ironically forced to deal with major flooding of its own.

The basement of the rented building housing the Ministry’s Drainage division on Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain was flooded yesterday during the heavy midday rains. The flooding resulted in the partial submergence of five vehicles belonging to Ministry workers.

The vehicles, a Mitsubishi Libero belonging to Clerk IV Arlene Harris, a Ford Ranger belonging to Technician Mario John, a Nissan Almera car belonging to Administration officer Noel Thomas, another Libero belonging to Chief Roads Planner Michael McKenzie and a brand new Toyota Yaris belonging to Acting Chief Architect Shirla Murray, were all partially submerged in the midday downpour, with water reaching the level of the windscreen of some of the vehicles.

Newsday was told fire service officers arrived quickly and resorted to using two pumps, for more than three hours, to empty the water from the basement. Wreckers were then used to remove the vehicles from the basement.

The workers, recognising the irony of the event, said the flood had nothing to do with the Ministry’s work but was due to a construction flaw in the building. Efforts to contact the owners of the building yesterday however proved futile.