NWA contractors on alert amid unstable weather
Published:Tuesday | November 1, 2022 | 12:07 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
With the island expected to experience increased rainfall as Tropical Storm Lisa passes south of Jamaica between Monday night and Tuesday morning, the National Works Agency (NWA) says its western contractors are on standby to perform any necessary mitigation work in case of any damage from the system.
Janel Ricketts, the community relations officer for the NWA’s western region, told The Gleaner on Monday that the contractors were engaged and prepared during meetings even before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season on June 1.
“What we have been doing in recent times is the cleaning of drains across the region, and this effort continues. We have been doing various programmes over the last couple of weeks, targeting drains and gullies, so we continue with that effort,” Ricketts added.
In recent weeks, the island was impacted by the outer banks of then-Tropical Storm Ian, resulting in flooding and land slippages in several areas.
Addressing the concern of potential landslides, such as those caused by Ian in September in Trelawny, Hanover, Westmoreland and other parishes, Ricketts said that the NWA is currently maintaining vigilance.
“In terms of mitigation, that is sometimes a little difficult in terms of a landslide because, you know, there are some areas that are more prone to landslides than others. Areas that are saturated will have some amount of slippage and that is difficult to navigate, so it is really a wait-and-see thing because we do not know where landslides will occur at any one moment,” said Ricketts.
“You may have a serious named storm, for instance, and you may not see a landslide during that event, whereas you have instances like we had recently [with Ian] where you just have regular rainfall over a period of time, but based on the area being saturated, you will see land slippage. That is why we encourage persons, as best as possible, to operate by certain best practices in terms of not removing vegetation from hillsides, because they hold the soil together, and also in terms of not blocking your drains and so on,” Ricketts explained.
Tropical Storm Lisa, the 12th named storm for the 2022 hurricane season, was formed on Monday south of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and has been forecast to make landfall, likely as a hurricane, in Central America later this week with a westward to west-northwestward motion expected over the next few days.
Jamaica was placed under a tropical storm watch on Sunday in light of Lisa’s projected path.