THE METEOROLOGICAL Service yesterday issued a severe weather alert following an outbreak of heavy showers and thunderstorms brought on by a cold front located to the west of Jamaica.The front was expected to travel across the island last night but showers are still expected for today and tomorrow afternoon.
Duty forecaster, Glenroy Brown said things should return to normal by Monday.
Jamaicans took out umbrellas and donned boots to traverse flooded streets. While there were no reports of flooding in rural areas up to late yesterday, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) put all parish committees and disaster teams on alert.
"We have alerted all the members of the national response team and the parish disaster committee members so everybody is on standby in the event that we start having problems," said Ronald Jackson, the ODPEM's senior director of preparedness and emergency operations division.
He said that there were calls from concerned motorists asking about routes in and around areas that usually become flooded such as the Bog Walk Gorge in St. Catherine.
Despite the thunderstorms, some activities continued, however, among them the National Council on Drug Abuse's public education series, entitled "Infopub and the Best of Squeaky", a programme to raise the awareness of children, five to 14 years old, about the dangers of abusing drugs. The chosen mascot for the programme came from Clarendon's May Pen Primary school.
Scores of students from Kingston, St. Andrew, Clarendon, St. Thomas and other areas crowded into the Mico Counselling Centre on Manhattan Road, Kingston to listen to senior medical resident at the Bellevue Hospital, Dr. Kyaw Oo, Inspector Conroy Reid of the Narcotics Division and Ionie Whorms, from the Ionie Whorms Inner-city Counselling Centre, talk about various drugs, substance abuse and the effect it has on the body.
