Four days after the area was declared a "disaster zone" following floods, residents of Simeon Road, Diego Martin, claim they have still not received any assistance from any regional corporation or Government agency.

One resident, Barbara Wilkie-Snaggs, 44, said ten homes on the steep hill at the top of Simeon Road were virtually cut off last Saturday, when the only water course and access bridge were blocked by falling boulders and felled trees.

"It was worse than this," she said, motioning to the huge boulders crowding on one side of the bridge.

"The whole bridge was covered with these rocks and the people from here get sledgehammers and break up the rocks to clear the bridge," she said.

"Just the people in the back here did this," she said.

Wilkie-Snaggs said over ten families use the bridge as an access road. She recalled hearing "just a loud rumbling" before the entire side of the hill collapsed into the water course.

"Nobody moved. But after the weather cleared a little bit, it was still drizzling a little bit, but we came out to see what was happening," she said.

She said with the waterway blocked, the rushing water flooded over the bridge and careened off to the side of the hill on the other side, undermining the stairway to another neighbour's home.

"One more rain like that and his house gone," she said.

"It came and it eat away all here," she said, pointing to the hill, now eroded by the flood water.

The houses, she said, were still intact for now, but they have not had electricity for the past four days.

"Nobody come here to see what was going on. I went to the clinic with my daughter and just happen to pass in the PNM (People's National Movement) office and told them what was going on," she said.

Member of Parliament for the Diego Martin Central Dr Amery Browne was also on-hand to assess the damage yesterday. Browne has been critical of the response by both the Government and the regional corporations, saying that while they were performing, it clearly was not enough.

"Since the last set of rainfall here, the agencies never responded. The problem has now tripled and when the rain falls now, what happens?" he asked

He said the access bridge, built in 2005, has stood up well, and if it were not for that the people at upper Simeon Road would have been completely cut off.

"Whenever rain falls, this infrastructure is threatened and it could all go. We would have to send a helicopter to rescue people," he said.

The steep hill, he added, could be accessed with the proper equipment to clear the boulders and trees clogging the waterway and threatening the bridge.

"There are several houses going up this side, with human beings and children," he said.

"But if any other water comes down here, it is all over. They will be cut off and it will be a permanent situation," Browne said.

Browne said his major issue with the response efforts was that they were too slow. He said while he acknowledged people have been pitching in and working hard, he questioned why the coordination and aid-distribution efforts were taking so long.

"It's day four and people still have mud in their houses. As an MP, I cannot be satisfied. There are still people suffering," he said.

Browne said the MP's office was not a distribution point, but people were still coming to him for help since they did not seem to be getting it elsewhere.

"There's too much dust, there's too much mud still, there are houses with mud still inside," he said.

"Emergency response is invisible. They said this was a disaster zone, but what does that mean? How has that mobilised the help for people?" he said. See Page 5.