Courting disaster
Harbour Drive residents living on the edge as unfinished gully puts their homes in danger
Published:Sunday | June 6, 2021 | 12:10 AMLivern Barrett - Senior Staff Reporter
Winnifred Jackson’s house now sits precariously near the edge of a gully behind her property in the east Kingston community of Harbour View.
The unpaved gully runs behind at least 25 other homes along Harbour Drive and was dug out over five years ago as part of a landslide mitigation project undertaken by the government, according to residents.
Jackson, a 79-year-old retiree, and the home she purchased 27 years ago were placed in harm’s way last November after heavy rains sent flood waters gushing uncontrollably through the gully, causing massive soil erosion.
She was among nine homeowners who saw the retaining walls they erected at the back of their properties washed away by the powerful combination of floodwaters and soil erosion last year.
Five other retaining walls were washed away by floodwaters in 2018, according to residents.
“You know what I’m really scared of? That the water is going to come underneath the earth and take away the house,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.
Those fears are real, according to Dr Chandra Degia, an environmental scientist, whose family retains a home on Harbour Drive.
“In the case of Harbour View, to my understanding, the soil is very sandy so it moves very easily and very quickly,” said Degia, indicating that this was confirmed by a construction engineer who conducted a site inspection.
“So, it [the gully] gets consistently wider every time there is rain, eating away at and destroying and eroding our properties. When you leave the area unpaved like that, what you are asking for is a disaster,” she warned.
Landslide Risk Mitigation
When the trench was being excavated in 2015, residents were assured that it was part of the Jamaica Landslide Risk Mitigation Project (JLRMP), according to Degia.
A pilot phase of the JLRMP was first announced by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) in 2011, checks by The Sunday Gleaner have revealed.
Harbour Heights, which takes in Harbour Drive, was one of four at-risk communities selected for the US$2.3 million or approximately J$203 million (2011 exchange rate) project that was financed by a grant from the Japanese Social Development Fund, an affiliate of the World Bank.
Melrose Heights, an informal settlement also located in Harbour View; Bedward Gardens, in St Andrew; and Breast Works, located in Portland, were the other communities selected for the project.
According to the National Works Agency (NWA), which supervised the project on behalf of ODPEM, the Harbour View leg of the project “involved construction of U-drain and the use of boulders to assist in reducing impact”.
“All works were completed based on the scope and funding that was made available,” NWA said in emailed responses to The Sunday Gleaner, indicating that ODPEM “would be in a better position” to disclose the value of each contract.
Richard Thompson, acting executive director of ODPEM, did not respond to questions sent on May 18 to an email address he provided. Calls and messages to his mobile phone went unanswered.
Benton Woodbine, director of Dwight’s Construction, confirmed that his firm was the contractor for the Harbour View project and insisted that the work was completed in accordance with the design.
“Anything I was given to do and paid for was done. If the scope of the work said, for example, that I should build a U-drain and the engineer goes on the job and it is his considered view that a U-drain is no longer necessary, then I would not have built a U-drain,” said Woodbine.
“I am not in a position to tell you what was added or subtracted from the original plan. I completed the job and I was paid accordingly. There is no record of any issue between me and the people who employed me.”
‘Much more work’ needed
The NWA acknowledged, however, that in the case of the Harbour View project, “much more work” was needed in order to significantly mitigate the impact of flooding, erosion and other natural occurrences.
As a result, it said the Government is now working on a plan to complete the u-drain and major drainage feature across the main road, located near the Caribbean Cement Company. “These together will assist in mitigating the impact of flooding as well as erosion in the location of the works,” the NWA said.
The JLRMP was the subject of an investigation by the Office of the Public Defender following complaints by the residents.
“After the project was implemented in 2015, there were heavy rains and it appears, remember we are not technical people, but from what we see either the design failed or the implementation failed, or a combination of both failed,” Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry said during a radio interview last week.
“That massive gully behind the homes of Harbour Drive has remained. It is not paved and the water from the community at a higher level, which is in Harbour Heights, come down into that gully in an uncontrolled fashion.”
However, Harrison Henry said her office “received word” that corrective work is scheduled to commence “mid to late” next month.
With forecasters predicting that the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season will be active, Sonia Wong is already on edge.
“I can’t sleep at night once rain is in the forecast,” the retired postmaster told The Sunday Gleaner during a recent interview.
“My wall was one of the first that went down in 2018. So, from then, every time the rain fall I have a problem to sleep because little by little the earth is going,” said Wong, one of the Harbour Drive homeowners.
She recalled the first morning she woke up to the sounds of a bulldozer at the back of her property without any warning.
“I couldn’t see behind there [because the retaining wall was in place], but I heard the bulldozer and the men chopping, and I even said to them ‘thank oonu for cleaning up’, not realising say is a gully they were digging.”