Principal yearns for relief from perennial flooding problem
PRINCIPAL DAHIMA Small-Francis has said that despite having a sound roof, good cadre of teachers and loyal community support, a recurring flooding problem has been making it difficult to operate an early childhood institution near Hoose Avenue in Spanish Town, St Catherine.
Noting the perilous state of the roads whenever it rains heavily, the principal is expressing hope that plans to clean drains near the institution will make it much safer for students, staff and residents of the area.
“The gully next to the school is really a sad case, so we need it to be fixed as whenever it floods out, we cannot come out of the school,” Small-Francis told The Gleaner on Thursday.
“It is so bad that a few weeks ago, a health worker was coming to examine the school. She was left on the road as the taxi operator refused to take her on the flooded road. We are also losing students to other schools due to the conditions,” she added.
The area is among a few floodprone communities in St Catherine North Central which have been earmarked for attention.
Accompanied by a technical team, Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie toured sections of Monticello, Avon Park, Villmore and Strathmore Gardens on Thursday amid a flood of complaints.
“What we have observed is a massive undertaking,” McKenzie said. “We find that these drains run through people’s properties, so although there is need for assistance, there has to be a process.”
He said that the immediate intervention would involve basic drain-cleaning.
UNTOLD SUFFERING
Member of Parliament Natalie Neita-Garvey, on whose invitation the minister visited the communities, supported the call for urgent intervention.
“These are communities that are 60 years old and were not handed over to the local planning authority and it resulted in untold suffering for the constituents,” Neita-Garvey said. “Whenever it rains, the place is transformed into lakes of murky water. People’s lives are constantly disrupted, but enough is enough, and I won’t rest until the conditions improve.”
“The age of these housing developments would explain that even if they were passed, the approval process wasn’t as stringent as now,” Spanish Town Mayor Norman Scott commented.
Villmore resident Errol Manning, who has been living on Hartford Road since 1978, said the constant flooding is a great inconvenience.
“The truth is, flooding is the main concern as you cannot move whenever it rains and the roads flood out. The roads need to be hoisted. More sidewalks [are] needed and better drain maintenance,” he suggested.
Among the worse affected areas are Hoose Avenue and Strathmore Gardens, where large bodies of murky water were settling up to the time of the tour.
Chief technical engineer in the Ministry of Local Government, Dwight Wilson, could not say when remedial work will begin.