Residents in flood-prone areas prepare for more rains

As weather experts predict a very active 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, a St Andrew family has decided to raise the height of their yard and home 16 inches above surface in an attempt to avoid getting flooded out.

Blanch Allen, 57, who lives on Marlborough Road in New Haven, said the decision to build the elevated surface stemmed from losses she and her two daughters, Latoya Burrows and Shelly Ann Brown, endured after water raced through their home last October.

"About one month and three weeks wi affi leave di house fah until the water subside. Di water reach mi waist and I am little over five feet ... so because wi no wah dis happen to wi again, we decide fi tek action," Allen told THE STAR last Saturday when our news team visited the community. Brown and other residents believe the flooding will continue if the drainage systems are not properly fixed.

"So di only solution we have right now until dem come fix the place is to get higher than the road so that's when the flooding start, the water is channelled away from us," she said.

"I remember one time Ricky (family friend) did come dung here and him ketch one big fish out deh so pon di road. That is how high the water was," she added.

Meanwhile, Anthony Green, who lives in Greenwich Town, a community in close proximity to the flood-prone Marcus Garvey Drive, also in St Andrew, said he is already moving out valuables in the event that history repeats itself.

Hurricane season

"Mi cyah afford fi start all over again, enuh. Last year nearly all a mi items dem get damaged from the flooding. So weh mi decide fi do this time is to relocate dem to somewhere safe. Mi ago ride out this hurricane season wid mi bed and other small items weh mi can easily replace," he said.

The 44-year-old said that it is baffling how those in authority cannot find a solution to the perennial issue of flooding along the highway when there is torrential rain.

"Every year yuh expect this fi happen, during the hurricane season and when rain fall fi more than a week. But all now dem cyah find a solution to the problem and dem call themselves experts," he said. Last year, torrential rains caused landslides and severe flooding in various sections of the island.