Food for Portland - Flood victims complain of slow assistance

By Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter

Jamaica Defence Force soldiers and a Red Cross volunteer, yesterday load bags of rice for flood victims, aboard a JDF helicopter at Folly Oval, Port Antonio, Portland. The supplies were dropped off along with other relief items in areas in the parish made inaccessible by landslides and washed out bridges. - Rudolph Brown

AS THE waters began to recede slowly yesterday, residents of flood-ravaged communities in Portland vented their anger and frustration describing the efforts of relief agencies in the parish as either too little, or selective or slow.

The five days of continuous heavy rain left many villagers without food or shelter or in some cases mud that was several inches deep.

The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, with the assistance of Jamaica Defence Force helicopters made several food drops in communities such as Swift River and Chelsea which are still cut off by road.

There were reports of at least two rescue missions including one involving a woman suffering from high blood pressure.

In Berrydale, some residents complained that since their houses were flooded after the Rio Grande overflowed its banks on Monday they had got only miserly rations of food which barely kept them for one night.

"All I get is one sheet, two tins of mackerel, 2 lb. of rice and a tin of sardine and that was from Monday," said Ann-Marie Kassie who has a family of five. In her water-soaked and silted house was a bed frame with no mattress. The mattress she said was destroyed in the flood. She and her family have been sleeping on the bed frame since Monday.

Several banana farmers and raftsmen and other villagers in the area, who were busy trying to remove six-inch deep silt from their houses and small business places, pointed out that the flood took away their livelihood and argued that the Government should at least "give us something fi make a start."

But according to Fay Neufville, Portland parish co-ordinator of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, residents will have to be rational about the crisis and understand that it was impossible for relief aid agencies such as ODPEM, with insufficient funds, to help everyone. Only those persons who were seen as most needy would benefit from relief aid, she said.

About 3 p.m. yesterday workers from ODPEM, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army were busy packing additional food and bedding at Folly, Port Antonio, the parish capital, to take into the area.

"We a beg the government fi give we some help. Is nearly $100,000 mi lose on my farm and goat not in it, cow not in it and fowl not in it," said Carlton Miller, 30, of Berrydale, East Portland.

Residents of Berrydale are reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and are pleading with the authorities to hurry and send them help to get back on their feet.

A farmer from the Rio Grande Valley Community lost five acres of bananas; of the 206 rafts owned by the raftsmen working along the Rio Grande, only six were found on the river bank yesterday.

Maxine Passley, 36, said that when the river broke away a retaining wall along its bank on Monday all the houses in the valley including hers were flooded in just a few hours. She had to evacuate leaving almost everything behind.

"I have a 16 month-old baby and when I see the river start to come down I just take him up and leave the house." She said she had to swim back to the house after that to rescue her "papers and baby clothes."

"Everything wash way. Video, TV, settee, stove everything," said the woman who was busy along with friends and family, washing out muddy clothes.

More than 200 persons are now being housed in temporary shelters across the island, with 125 being put up in a church on Main Street, Annotto Bay.

Prime Minister Patterson said on Wednesday that once the rains abate a full assessment of the damage done to the affected parishes of Portland, St. Mary and St. Ann and to some extent Trelawny, St. Catherine and St. Andrew will be done to determine the losses in agriculture, tourism, industry and commerce. Cabinet will discuss the report next Monday.

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