Flood-prone community accepts fate

For Carol Dunkley*, each time it rains her home along Columbus Drive in New Haven, St Andrew, is flooded, and this week, should hurricane Beryl hit the island, she and her neighbours expect the worst to happen again.

For years, residents living along Columbus Drive have experienced terrible flooding, and according to them, the more trees are cut down and houses built in the neighbouring Red Hills and Coopers Hill - some of which they can witness going up from where they stand daily - is the greater the volume of water, waste, and trash that is dumped on them when it rains.

Some of the homeowners, tenants, and previous squatters have been frustrated with the living conditions and have migrated over the years, primarily because along with the flooding threat is overflowing sewage, which now persists, as well as crocodiles that live in both their drains and the neighbouring Duhaney River.

“It has become the norm for us. We know we a go flood out dis week. We welcome it with open arms. We naav fi ask Christ that, but wa else we a go do? We naav nowhere else to go. The mayor came today and committed to cleaning the drains and fix the sewage issue before the hurricane gets here, but let’s be realistic, him and him people dem can fix di sewage situation in a matter of days? Don’t dem affi dig it up and put in a new pump? Di pump buy yet or dem gone service di old one fi fling back in and start again ‘til it stop work?” asked Dunkley, who was speaking with The Gleaner as she sat on a bench outside a shop some metres from her gateway.

“Anyway, we reach a point inna our lives down here weh we just accept our fate. We a go flood out, and a just it dat. Just as how we are living in the stinking sewage scent that lingers and the sewage in the road for over a month,” she said.

Dunkley’s neighbour, during The Gleaner’s visit, was at a nearby church, praying and hoping for the hurricane to turn away from Jamaica.

She is the mother of four children, all of whom say they will have to stay in the water should Hurricane Beryl come to Jamaica this week because they, too, predict that their house will be flooded.

“We house low like di road level. You nuh see? See it. Di sewage pile up under the gate, but Mommy seh we affi stay,” one of the innocent children told The Gleaner.

‘A sad reality’

Their neighbours across the dirt road, some of whom are pig farmers inside the informal settlement between Columbus Drive and Duhaney River, say they expect the Duhaney River to overflow its banks, flood their houses, and also their pig pens with their animals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“It’s a sad reality, but bredda, it a go happen. Naav fi ask Christ that,” one of the pig farmers told The Gleaner.

“Wa really need fi gwan is that uptown need get rid a dem waste properly because all a it come dung inna di river. Look inna di river if you nuh see bare trash and the culvert fi di bridge outta Mandela and Washington Boulevard intersection. A uptown that come from and wash come down here. Anyway, me tired fi talk. Mi just a live wid it,” he said.

In an effort to remedy the situation with residents in New Haven and other low-lying Corporate Area communities that expect to be flooded out should Hurricane Beryl strike the island, the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) yesterday called an emergency meeting for the councillors to discuss the way forward.

Leading that emergency meeting was Andrew Swaby, the mayor of Kingston, who said a disaster-preparedness meeting was originally planned for July 12, but given the potential threat of Beryl, they brought the meeting forward in anticipation of the impending storm.

Present at the emergency meeting were the parish disaster coordinator, the city engineer and officers assigned to the various zones, as well as the poor relief department. They then toured communities in and around New Haven, Harbour Drive, Sir Florizel Glasspole Boulevard, High Holborn Street, Spanish Town Road, and Eight Miles to hear the grouses of residents and view their clogged drains and sewage overflow.

“We have called a meeting with the other agencies to check their readiness,” Swaby said in an interview following the tour.

Given that the city of Kingston has hundreds of homeless persons, he said the KSAMC is trying to find some locations, for example, a temporary location at Church Street in downtown Kingston, which was opened during the COVID-19 pandemic and can accommodate around 200 persons.

He said he has instructed the disaster coordinator to place the numbers of all the shelters and shelter managers’ details and contact information on the KSAMC’s website and social media platforms so that needy persons can know where the shelters are.

For his part, Robert Hill, chief executive officer of the KSAMC, said the full emergency operations centre would become active today at the disaster coordinator’s office on Hanover Street to monitor the needs of Jamaicans, especially in finding the centres nearest to them.

“The Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation is ready and able to assist as many as we can once we can manage the numbers and we have information coming to us,” he said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com