Clarendon community remembers deadly June floods

It has been 35 years since the infamous June floods ravaged lives and livelihoods across much of Jamaica, with the parish of Clarendon being the heaviest hit.

At least 50 people died during the 1986 disaster.

Myrtel Brown, a resident of Parnassus in York Town, Clarendon, told THE STAR that it was so dreadful she believed it was "the coming of the Lord."

"I was working with the banana company and we couldn't even come up fi go a the work. Yuh see when them say everything check down, and it draw, and we go down deh say we a go work, a bare dead body in deh, enuh," Brown said.

"Them a fi a carry out the people dem pan bamboo come lay dem a roadside fi di hearse come fi them. It was a disaster ... terrible disaster," she said.

Flooding, caused by torrential rains, resulted in the plains being severely flooded. The Rio Minho breaking its banks and dumping its menacing waters into the surrounding communities made things even more dire.

According to Brown, the water from the flooding was so high, it covered a 30-foot high packaging area at the production company.

"It nuh lef nuh weh weh it nuh come. When yuh look and see mud and sitten how [the river ] mash up de place and dweet," she said.

Christopher McKenzie was among the people who retrieved bodies from a section of the Rio Minho in Parnasus.

Four hours straight

"I cyaa figet that [flood.] It was a disaster. The rain was falling, but the last day we get rain fi bout three or four hours straight and the river overcome its bank."

"At that time, the bridge down by Glenmuir Road give way and a van drop down in there with some people and all a them drown. After the river draw them find people scatter all 'bout in a the bush," McKenzie told THE STAR.

More than three decades later, the elderly man still harbours concerns whenever there is heavy or continuous rainfall.

"If rain, we affi look out fi anything, and true we have the climate change now, we can expect anything happen, any time," he said.

McKenzie said the experience is ground for his mounting concerns of the bridge currently being built to facilitate the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of Highway 2000.

"Them building the highway bridge and me seh bwoy, a down in a the river bed them a make the bridge column dem, and me seh them nuh know when that river a come down how them a go manage, 'cause it a go tek weh everything weh them have," he said.

Merrick Barnaby told THE STAR that he was among the men who performed 'search operations' after the flood waters receded.

"A think a bout three bodies we found one day. Fridge and all kind a supm wash out a people house, 'cause everything wash down this side," he said.