Weather warning

WESTERN BUREAU:

As Jamaica braces for a tropical storm that is expected to affect the island come Monday evening, Montego Bay Mayor Richard Vernon is expressing confidence that St James is prepared to deal with the potential impact of the adverse weather system.

Addressing an emergency online stakeholder meeting on Sunday about the readiness of St James’ various stakeholder groups to mitigate any emergency situations that could arise during the storm’s passage, Vernon gave the assurance that the St James Municipal Corporation, of which he is chairman, will prioritise waste collection and sensitisation of residents to reduce the possibility of flooding or blocked drains due to heavy rains.

“In light of the lessons learned, best practices, and the overall proactiveness of the respective agencies and departments, I believe that the city of Montego Bay and the municipality of St James are in a state of readiness, come what may. We will continue to monitor the physical condition of the space, and the weather, as well as listen to bulletins from the ODPEM (Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management) and take them under advisement so we can better prepare ourselves and adjust where necessary, and based on all of that, we will also use it as an indicator to activate the emergency operations centre [EOC] if need be,” said Vernon.

“We continue to sensitise and do the necessary waste collections as much as possible, and the National Solid Waste Management Authority will give us some more updates pertaining to that as soon as we meet again tomorrow (Monday). Hopefully, we do not have to activate the EOC, but based on the information coming out of ODPEM, we may have to,” Vernon added. “But of course, we continue to educate and to sensitise and to collect where we can to reduce the impact of waste on the effects of the weather systems that we are faced with.”

Vernon’s comments came moments after Roland Haye, the ODPEM’s regional coordinator for western Jamaica, indicated that the storm could become an officially named system by Monday, with up to 10 inches of rainfall in the worst-case scenario.

“With regard to our situation at present, there is a severe weather alert from the Meteorological Office due to a disturbance which is developing, and come [Monday], it may be a named system. The situation is that the system has a lot of rain associated with it, so whether or not it is upgraded to a named system, meaning it has sustained winds of 65 kilometres or more, which is when it becomes a tropical storm, it will impact us primarily with rain,” Haye explained.

“Based on computer models, western Jamaica, where we are located, could experience up to 280 millimetres of rain, which is about 10 inches, and that is a lot of rain in such a short period of time. The weather should deteriorate starting tomorrow going into late afternoon, and the bulk of the system should be over western Jamaica during the evening into Monday night, so whatever preparations that are necessary, you should be making them now,” Haye continued.

Meanwhile, Saad Campbell, the superintendent of the StJMC’s roads and works department, said while efforts have been made to clean several drains in and around Montego Bay ahead of the weather system, the municipal corporation will be on standby to render assistance in case of emergency situations across the parish.

“All the areas that we would have had some concerns with, especially the township, those have been addressed by the National Works Agency and the StJMC. We have had some areas of concern, like in John’s Hall, where we have been having a lot of land slippage in recent times, so we will just make sure we are pre-positioned to that kind of adverse weather in the event that it does come toward us,” Campbell told the meeting.

Montego Bay and other parts of St James have had past issues with flooding following bouts of heavy rain, including an incident on August 31 this year where a river in John’s Hall overflowed its banks and flooded the community during a downpour. Prior to that, sections of Montego Bay suffered extensive flooding in the downtown district following torrential rains in November 2017.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com