Edith Falls October 23
When the deluge struck last night, Julian’s grandmother fell trying to escape her flooding concrete apartment. She needs a bed for tonight, her grandson says. He is speaking to the hundreds listening to 100.5 fm, one-double-oh-point-five, on community airwaves, the frequency for potable water announcements. There is altogether too much water in Port of Spain this morning but, oddly, like the song goes, not a drop to drink. Nanna is reportedly both bruised and thirsty.
“Where t’ose big military trucks we saw on Independence Day?“ asks Julian to the Reggae DJ. “We need ‘em now, Bro’!“
Sunshine has briefly emerged after days of heavy rain, torrential at times, which has inundated the low-lying neighborhoods. Almost a thousand Presbyterian conventioneers were trapped last night with the Holy Spirit at the Macoya Centre of Excellence. Volunteers are petitioned for boats and inflatable rafts, while dozens of Saint Helena and Carina residents still await help on their rooftops. Classes are cancelled tomorrow as public schools are converted to emergency shelters. Since the Caroni and Guayamare Rivers overflowed their banks four hours ago, the Uriah Butler Freeway has flooded, effectively severing the artery to the south. The city becomes an island unto itself, and more rain is in the forecast. The Prime Minister has declared a state of national emergency, which will likely trigger a slough of curfew parties after dark.
The DJ rails, “Where is the ODPM (Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management)? Where is anybody? Like the government gone silent on we here.“
In the absence of official assistance, and with internet access failing among the most desperate, radio stations rise to the occasion, posting messages from loved ones and specifying immediate needs: food at the elderly home has spoiled, a San Pedro pregnant lady is in labor, diabetics have lost their insulin from the power outage, and there are reports of displaced reptiles everywhere—caimans in houses, red-tailed Macajuel constrictors clinging to backyard fruit trees, and at least one frightened monster of an anaconda sharing roof shingles with a shivering young family.
During the rain break, kids celebrate the unscheduled vacation day on diluvian streets, playing in the standing pools despite adult warnings about toxic slicks, submerged hazards, ringworms, leptospirosis, and, lest we forget, homeless snakes and caimans. The DJ advises listeners not to eat the caimans because of contamination, but I can think of other reasons. He swears by his trusted reptile repellant—surrounding your foundation with diesel fuel—“Dey doh like dee smell.“ I imagine it affects the taste as well.
Crossing the swollen Diego Martin River, I make for higher ground west of the disaster area, in Tucker Valley, where floodwaters have receded. I park at the deserted Chaguaramas Golf Club and cross the old plantation property—once sugarcane, then cocoa, then tonka bean—now overgrown with massive clumps of mature bamboo. Somewhere above me is a perturbed howler monkey earning his title. It is a rather disgusting sound, like a beer burp, only produced by inhaling instead of exhaling.
The jungle trailhead to Edith Falls is posted “Temporarily Closed“, but the sign looks ancient. I proceed with caution, as per the advice of an old Indian woman at the Club. The sound of this abandoned place is deafening beneath the dense canopy—cicadas roar, monkeys backward-belch, and giant stands of bamboo groan and crash in the weighty atmosphere. One uprooted pile of the green hollow timber fills the path like a collapsed house, requiring my own monkey skills to negotiate. Agitated termites from fallen nests suggest this event is recent. Wary blue-emperor butterflies inspect the mess. Mosquitos feed a nursery with my blood.
After an hour, my pack and I are covered with the dripping brown detritus of spores, carapaces, rubber-tree sap, termites, and filthy dead emperors, as if the earth was falling through the trees. Mercifully, Edith Falls is less than a mile from my car, with moderate scrambling. This trail was a creek only a few hours ago, when the falls likely bore a pudding river. Now a clear stream runs over the shale cliff face into a shallow pool. Julian’s grandmother could use the fresh water. I hope she finds a new bed soon, as the sky is growing dark again. I notice the cicadas have ceased their racket. The howlers are holding their breath. Then comes the rain.
I am soaked and coated with jungle poo by the time I reach my car. Sheets of rain render my wipers useless, like I am driving through a carwash, unable to see the potholes I know covered this road on the way in. Hardy policemen are placing barriers at the entrance of the Tucker Valley Road as I arrive from the wrong direction.
“Ya no s’pposed to be hee-a.“
Yes, I know, Officer, so the monkeys have been telling me. The man approves of my soundtrack—100.5 fm—where news and reggae are happening. He waves me on, and I return the wavelength.
Muddy streams course over the narrow coastal road in Carenage as the downpour lessens, and I can see again. On one tight turn, cut into the ferric-red hillside, a fancy-latticed brick retaining-wall sprouts a leak as I pass and dribbles like a spastic uncle onto the shoulder. Moments later, a portion of the bricks give way, as if pierced by a cannon ball. The muddy wound oozes onto the tarmac, causing an old telephone pole to shift from noon to two-o’clock. I crossed over just in time, it would seem, yet somehow I am still here.