‘We couldn’t move’
Construction workers stay on the job despite being shaken
Published:Tuesday | October 31, 2023 | 12:12 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
Unlike the nearby supermarkets and wholesales that shuttered their doors after an earthquake rocked Jamaica on Monday, a group construction workers in Stony Hill, St Andrew, were back on the job within minutes of the nightmarish scare.
Audley ‘Tanzie’ Dennie, the foreman on a worksite in the community, was atop the second floor of a building under construction when the 5.6-magnitude earthquake jolted the island about 10:57 a.m.
He told The Gleaner that it took him and his apprentices by surprise, noting that in his 33 years of constructing buildings, he had never had such a frightening experience, especially caught that high during an earthquake.
“Right here I sat and couldn’t move. That was a big earthquake. The building go left and come back right, jus a swing so. You could hang clothes on the power lines to how low dem come down,” recalled Dennie.
With many structures across the island suffering damage on Monday, the senior Dennie said that the earthquake underscored the need for proper building practices.
He praised the remarkable work of his steelmen, crediting their know-how for the fact that the two-storey building withstood the tremor.
“Nothing nuh do it, not even crack nor tear nor burst. That’s why I say the steelman dem can get some more money for their steelwork,” Dennie quipped.
Several other construction workers were also high up on the building when the quake hit.
Johnoy Dennie, a worker at the site, told The Gleaner that the encounter was very frightening and he thought the building would collapse with them.
“A rough thing gwan. A ground mi nearly reach. A run mi want run come down. Construction work nice, but that [quake] wasn’t nice, worse we nuh deh a ground,” he said.
Having lost his two-month-old niece when a house in the neighbouring district of Bowden Hill collapsed with her and others inside recently, he was all too familiar with such a type of tragedy.
“Steelwork is instrumental in building and the accuracy of how the steel is tied so that it can [be] vibrant. That is why you have this [joint] at every foot. It can’t rigid; it must have flex in it so that it can go so (move with the swing),” the foreman pointed out. “We call it fabricating work, like a mattress that can sink and reform.”