By Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterMANY PEOPLE who had no intention of doing work on Labour Day, were forced yesterday to be on their feet from the wee hours of the morning, toiling to save their belongings after heavy rains flooded several homes in St. Catherine.
The showers and thunderstorms associated with a low-pressure system which developed from a stationary front drifting slowly from the west to the northeast of the island, left several persons in the parish homeless, marooned elderly people for hours in their makeshift houses, and killed several animals in Central Village, the Job Lane area of Spanish Town, and other sections of the parish.
In Central Village, several trees lay uprooted on the highway while houses in the low-lying section of the Zion Hill community appeared to be floating in muddy water.
"All the house dem flood out," said Sheldon Clarke, 27, who was busy nailing back his zinc roof with the help of his son and neighbours.
"The thunderstorm lift off the whole ah mi roof. I pick it up over the open land in the morning."
Mr. Clarke, who also raised chickens and ran a small shop, lost almost 200 fowls which drowned in their coops after the water rose several feet in his yard. His neighbours also reported that an 85-year-old man who was unable to move had to be rescued from his home after water began rising in his house.
Several residents of the Spaulding Gardens housing scheme had to be evacuated from houses where flood waters rose more than two feet, destroying several beds, other items of furniture and drowning at least one dog.
Four families were evacuated from Williamson Avenue in the community, as the water overflowed a small blocked up drain and settled in their yards.
"All the beds them wet up, the fridge... everything," said Daniel Barker, whose family had to be evacuated from their house on Williams Avenue. "If the canal did build up a little higher, this wouldn't have happened," he lamented.
Mr. Barker and his family said the flooding had been a recurrent problem in the community for more than 20 years now and no one had done anything to ensure that the community gets a proper drainage system.
Trevor Garvey, JLP constituency caretaker for South Central St. Catherine, who was on hand to assist the affected persons in the community along with the Spanish Town Fire Brigade, said he was calling on the relevant authorities to rectify the drainage problem in the area as soon as possible.
"All the drains (in the area) have been totally flooded. We need to rehabilitate them fast," said Mr. Garvey, who added that he was trying to get assistance for persons affected by the flooding.
He said he had tried to reach the local branch of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) without success. "This (flooding) is an on-going problem. I thought that with an election coming up, something would have been done to alleviate the situation already."
