St James fisherfolk bracing for Tropical Storm Rafael
Published:Tuesday | November 5, 2024 | 12:12 AMRochelle Clayton/Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
Still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Beryl, fishermen in St James are bracing for impact as heavy rainfall associated with Tropical Storm Rafael is expected across the island over the next few days.
On Monday, fisherfolk across three parish's fishing beaches were moving their boats and other equipment to land for safekeeping.
Donald Bell, a fisherman at the Montego Bay Fishing Village, said securing all their fishing equipment was of utmost importance. He added that some of the equipment was recently replaced after the Category 4 Hurricane Beryl caused chaos in the fishing industry in July.
“Most of the boats are pulled on to the land. According to the weather report, our expectation is just a lot of rain. It doesn’t sound like it is going to be windy, but most of them are trying to protect their fishing traps and nets,” Bell said.
He told The Gleaner that fisherfolk are expecting to lose some equipment.
“We did not get a chance to move the fish traps that are out at sea so we might lose those. I have a lot of traps and I moved 30 of them, but I could not move the [remaining] 25. I am still shell-shocked from [Hurricane Beryl] because I still haven’t gotten the chance to rebuild my traps, so imagine how I am feeling now,” he stated.
Meanwhile, The Gleaner was just in time to witness the team effort to push boats on land at the Whitehouse Fishing Village on Monday afternoon.
Audley Porter, a fisherman, explained that the boats are expected to stay on shore until the tropical storm passes.
“Depending on the nature of the storm, we would take them as far away from the water as possible, but this storm is still in the state of a tropical storm. We anticipate that it might build up, but we are not looking for something of an aggressive nature,” Porter said.
“We are still in the hurricane season until the end of November, so we have been staying prepared,” he added.
Victor England, a Whitehouse fisherman, told The Gleaner that fisherfolk have been struggling with low tide at the fishing beach. He further expressed gratitude that the pending weather conditions allowed them to swiftly move their boats to land.
“When we have the low tide, it's very difficult for the boats to come in. Fortunately, today we have high tide due to the pending weather, but most of the time, the boats cannot go in or come out properly, and not many fish are living in there anymore. We are requesting intervention to have it dredged,” he said.
Over at Harvey Beach, Junior Gardner was concerned.
“Mi have my children fi go school. Mi have light bill, water, and grocery nuh come in yet. This is my only source of livelihood. Mi nuh do anything else so mi nuh know what go happen fi the next week. It has been really slow because of the rain and breeze every morning. It just hard,” Gardner lamented.