Downpours inundate boats, sink one, leaving fishers flummoxed
Published:Saturday | November 18, 2023 | 12:09 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
Fishermen at the Greenwich Town Fishing Village in St Andrew were taken by surprise by heavy rainfalls which flooded several of their vessels on Thursday night, with one sinking after taking in a huge volume of water.
Despite being aware that the Meteorological Service of Jamaica placed the island under a tropical storm watch at 5 p.m. on Thursday, the fishermen told The Gleaner that they did not expect the heavy rains to start so soon.
Earlier, all parishes had been placed under a flash flood watch amid a broad area of low pressure across the southwestern Caribbean that has been producing a large area of cloudiness with showers and thunderstorms.
The fishermen, however, while indicating that they had secured their boats and equipment in the village, were stumped by the amount of rain that fell on Thursday.
Gareth, a veteran fisherman, who was seen eating his lunch under a tree on Friday, said: “We tek it serious, but we never a look fi it start fall so heavy last night, we never expect so much water.”
He said that several boats were flooded, noting that one colleague’s boat sank after taking in too much water.
The boat was recovered and on Friday, it was pulled apart to have the water drained from crucial parts such as the engine, which was observed nearby propped up on a piece of board.
Gareth theorised that it would cost the owner a significant sum to have the engine removed and repaired and to purchase some of the replacement parts damaged by the water.
In the meantime, he was anxiously waiting for normal weather conditions to be restored so that he could resume his livelihood and care for his children.
Another fisherman, Errol Wilson, said the bad weather dealt him a severe blow.
“[It] bad, bad, man. Nobody can’t go sea. This a affect we livelihood and we can’t go weh left we boat. We affi watch fi mek sure dem alright,” he told The Gleaner.
Precautionary measures
Noting that the sea has been rough since Thursday, Wilson said his colleagues had started taking precautionary measures even before the weather alert was issued as a fisherman, who he claims can read the weather, had warned them on Monday that something major was coming.
Like his colleagues, Wilson was waiting for heavy rains as there was nothing else to do.
In the meantime, a few vendors who were out said that business was very slow, but not unexpectedly.
Hardly any customer was seen when The Gleaner visited the area, but the vendors indicated they had been able to secure a few sales.
At the same time, Latane Lindsay shared: “From the week start, a so it slow, and today, it even more slow.”
However, another vendor said that sales have been significantly low over the past few weeks because several customers have stopped visiting the fishing village because of the flare-up of violence in the nearby Greenwich Town community.