Persistently bad weather keeps relief services on their toes |01 February 2021

Anse Etoile Friday afternoon

With persistently heavy rainfall and windy conditions, emergency and relief services had their hands full this past weekend, attending to numerous incidents around the island.

As of Friday, incidents of tree falls and minor flooding and landslides were recorded in some areas, including Anse Etoile, which saw a large boulder being dislodged and rolling downhill onto a nearby motor access road. Despite being in a secondary road, the boulder which landed slap bang in the middle of the road, caused traffic to be congested in the area and efforts to break the boulder to remove it from the road was still ongoing during the early hours of the evening into the night. The owner of the nearby property from which the rock was dislodged was on site assisting with the works, as well as an excavator to move the portions of broken boulder.

Still in the north region, the Department of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM) on Friday evening tended to a site at Machabée where a large, aged breadfruit tree fell, ripping apart other trees on its way down, and blocking the access route used by many residents of the area to reach their homes. There were no casualties and no damage to nearby properties in the incident which occurred earlier on during the day. Access to the footpath was restored to residents on Friday night, as services worked, even in the dark, to remove the humongous tree carcasses and clear the way.

Meanwhile, in the southern region, residents nearby the Ex-Onezime Estate, Anse Aux Pins, were left in the dark on Friday night, when strong winds caused a tree to fall onto some power lines resulting in a power outage. Due to heavy rainfall, the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) was unable to rectify the problem the same night, but restored electricity to resident early on Saturday morning, after having repaired the broken power lines.

As the weather cleared up in most places on Saturday, no major incidents were reported to DRDM. Officials of the entity did however deploy to North East Point on Saturday after receiving reports of a fallen tree on a motor access road. The department also recorded some minor cases of flooding and high water level, and minor landslides in some areas.

The accompanying snapshots from SBC television news show some highlights of the incidents occurred during the weekend.

Laura Pillay