Residents of Cornfield in St Andrew joined hands and hearts on New Year’s Day to repair a section of the community’s entrance which poses a threat to safety, especially for the elderly.
Rowann Walters, who has lived in the area for more than 20 years, told The Gleaner that the original entrance to the district was lost years ago during heavy rains, which caused a breakaway.
Steps were built some hundred metres away from the original entrance as a temporary access point and the 42-year-old explained that through community efforts, a retaining wall was partially built on Labour Day about eight years ago.
“The other part need fi build but we cyah get no help from di representatives dem and that is where the road is breaking away. We live here, so we have to do it ourselves. Whenever it rains, the water comes between the two houses from up the hill and it comes like a riverbed. I’ve seen it work in other places where they lay tyres and use it to build retaining walls and heavy waters run over it, so we decided that we are going to try it,” the resident who spearheaded the project detailed.
Walters told The Gleaner that he secured approximately 60 tyres from a tyre shop but it appears that more will be needed to complete the project.
He explained that the plan is to stack the dirt-filled tyres to road level and he hopes that with financial assistance from residents they will be able to pave the area with concrete.
Paul Grant, a resident who was assisting with the repairs, reasoned that it was better to fix it as best they can, than be sorry when somebody gets washed away.
“We built the steps down there and kotch on a likkle railing bout two years ago but when yuh reach up to this part, there is hardly any road to walk,” Grant said.
He said in future, the remainder of the retaining wall can be built without removing the tyres.
“We pack it properly and they say this can last for 50 years. We talk to our member of parliament and we get two likkle bag of cement now and then, but nothing much,” he lamented.
Another resident, Michael Small, was among the men who were busy filling wheelbarrows with dirt to pack the tyres.
“We have to put our shoulders to the wheel because we have our houses up here and nobody has been helping us. This is very dangerous because all the water that is coming off the hill escapes right here to go down on the road. The water has taken away a lot of the road and we are at risk of losing the house right there. If we lose that house, there is no entrance to go in Cornfield,” the 55-year-old explained.
Before the breakaway, it was easy for Barbara Dunkley to access her home as it was closest to the foot of the hill.
Now, she uses the steps and walks around a narrow pathway to the home she shares with her husband and son.
“I am grateful for the steps but it was easier to walk the other way. I am 65 and I have lived here for 34 years. I feel scared sometimes because of how narrow the road is and how close it is to the edge. I have to use a stick to walk so I can balance and stay mostly to the left,” adding that she would be grateful if the authorities sought to build a proper road for residents to enter the community.