Well the devastation across the country and in particular Port of Spain today demonstrates the desperate state of affairs in this country.

Inclement weather is, of course, beyond anyone’s control. Our response to it is what makes us human.

Trinidadians were forced to revert to a primal state as flood waters predictably rose and swirled around our ankles, then knees, then necks. City Gate on a dry day is like a refugee camp in the Congo, a mass of humanity moving in unison like locusts in a swarm, hither and thither hoping to clamber onto a maxi without losing a shoe or your dignity. Just imagine City Gate this evening after rivers regurgitated their loads out onto South Quay and everywhere else.

People were actually fighting; frustration whittling away at already frayed nerves, men and women reverting to more primal instincts; survival, defense. On the television, images of women hiking up their skirts and trusting their heels to the murk, making their way up the main road, to walk up the highway, the bus route, to walk just anywhere. They are wondering like wildebeest, having exhausted grasses on the southern side of the Mara river, looking for a new home, but tentative in their steps, unsure of the dangers that lurk in the muddy waters.

Rightfully so, the predators are lying in wait for them, teeth bared, ready to pounce on this opportunity of weakness . Am I still talking about the wildebeest? As frazzled city workers try to wend their way home, the killers from the ‘hotspots’ pounce on them, shattering windows and grabbing unguarded purses or cell phones.  So the saga of survival plays out in the wetlands of South Quay.

Rain is a natural phenomenon, of course. Flooding, the domain of atmospheric disturbances conspiring with rising tides to inundate the city. That stranded citizens had absolutely no one to turn to, no one to tell them what they should do, where they should go; that is quite simply the government’s fault .

We have been turkey-gobbling for years about a disaster management policy and an evacuation plan for the city of Port-of-Spain. Citizens were calling media houses, “please, I am stranded on Richmond Street, can you tell me what I should do?” Go to a rumshop sit on a stool and just get tight, because we do not know anything. The only information given by the police is, “Don’t go into Port-of-Spain under any circumstances.”

Of course, that information would have been useful in the morning, not after everyone was already at work and trying to escape the hellhole that Port-of-Spain had become. It is my understanding that the few officers that were out in the capital appeared to be just as confused as the motorists. Guess all of those helicopters that the Minister of Natural Security keeps bragging about is only for independence day gallery, the great race and to keep people awake at night looking for a bandit the size of an ant on the ground running through alley ways to safe houses.

There was no coordinated approached to advising members of the public how they should cope with the wide scale flooding, which I again emphasize was quite predictable.

Indeed Monday’s rains were the warm up. So you have people tearing their hair out in traffic that just could not go anywhere. The only way you would find out that the traffic is not moving because of flooding is if you managed to get to the head of the line and are blocked by water, the depth of which is difficult to gauge. (Ask that poor soul in the benz shut down in Port-of-Spain yesterday. My sympathies, if you sellin’ holla!)

The Prime Minister, the right honourable Patrick Manning was headed to the Hyatt for another gab fest when his convoy of cars threatened to become a flotilla and he had to actually hoof it to his destination . Too bad someone did not pass in a car and soak his ass down. But, lookit, we have a first world skyline, first world prime minister’s residence, and first world ambitions.

This is what I see Mr Manning, first world money but third world mentality that has our citizens confused and scared in a city that has become a watery prison with bandits waiting in the wings to pounce . Good thing you had three men to hold umbrellas for you. I am still hurting for the young mother soaked to her slip, clutching two terrified children’s hands because she has no answers for the look of fear in their eyes.

So raise your champagne glasses in the Hyatt to all the monuments to your success while our people wade through muddy water, hoping that it is not more of the same in their living rooms, when, or if they finally get home.