St Ann Municipal Corporation calls emergency meeting following Saturday's gridlock

The St Ann Municipal Corporation has called an emergency meeting for 4:00 this afternoon to discuss yesterday's traffic gridlock in Ocho Rios and several other parts of St Ann, which lasted for several hours.

The incident spanned Saturday evening into late Saturday night The Gleaner understands. 

Senior Superintendent Dwight Powell said following yesterday's pandemonium, the police will have to revisit the issuing of party permits and also its strategy for dealing with traffic. 

There was a flood of complaints on social media last night by persons who had to spend several hours in a traffic jam between Ocho Rios and St Ann's Bay, as a party at the government-owned property, Pearly Beach, in the Dunn's River area, hosted Festival of Floats. 

However, Powell said Festival of Floats was not the only contributing event, as there were other activities in the area. 

“There were many persons visiting the parish yesterday, all the beaches were filled. As you know St Ann is a place for holidaymakers, so this is the first major holiday weekend since the opening of the country. The influx of people that came in yesterday totally inundated what we had in terms of police,” Powell said. 

He continued: “On good days we're having challenges already. Yesterday was an extraordinary one for us. Going into the rest of the holiday we're revisiting our strategies as we're expecting some other major events, to see how best we can avert situations like what happened yesterday.” 

Among the events set for St Ann over the rest of the weekend are Sands, set for today (Sunday); racing at the Dover Raceway; Igloo at the Ocho Rios Bay Beach, and Ocho Rios Carnival slated for Turtle River Park, on Easter Monday. 

Andrew Allen, who was caught in traffic along the thoroughfare yesterday, remarked that there was a lot of chaos and confusion as he tried to make his way off the highway at the Mammee Bay round-about on his journey from Kingston to Ocho Rios. 

He said after being stuck at the round-about for approximately an hour, he went back on the highway and exited at Golden Grove, travelled through Colgate and Fern Gully, only to be confronted by another traffic heading towards Milford Road into Ocho Rios. 

“General indiscipline of motorists was a major contributing factor, it was not just the taxi operators who were at fault. The police just could not cope,” he pointed out.  

He described his experience as being mild, compared to some others.  

A drive from Ocho Rios to St Ann's Bay, which usually takes about 25 minutes or less, lasted up to three-and-a-half hours for some motorists.    

Several workers at some places of employment waited in vain for their assigned vehicle to pick them up and had to seek alternate transport. Several others opted to walk for long distances, from Ocho Rios to Drax Hall and even to St Ann's Bay, The Gleaner also understands.  

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