THE EDITOR, Sir:
AS IS to be expected, after the storm has come not the calm but the recrimination, the finger-pointing and the politics about whose fault it is, why some areas have suffered so much damage.
First, we are all forgetting the force of Nature which descended on eastern Jamaica in particular over Thursday-Friday. City dwellers, smug and snug in their dry homes, have no idea of the kind of water-fury which unleashed itself in areas such as east rural St. Andrew, St. Thomas and Portland. In many places, recovery from Ivan was not even complete before more damage was piled on.
In the St. Andrew scenario, the once magnificent hills have been denuded and abused so that when the rain came thundering down, the earth was transformed quickly into mud, and a lot of it.
Evidence of this is to be seen even today in the vehicles coming into the city plastered with mud, which is still oozing on to the hill roads.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Mini-waterfalls are still cascading down hillsides, and roads, already bad, are disintegrating. Whose fault it is? Government must take some, maybe much of the blame, for lack of effective regulation and maintenance, but what about individual responsibility?
There's no doubt that while Nature did its part, we have to look at the hand we have been playing.
For the longest while some voices have been crying in the wilderness to get somebody, anybody, to take note of the environmental massacre which has been going on in the hills and to develop some form of management strategy to deal with it. The ridiculous situation of houses, mansions and shacks alike built on the river's edge, continues with no one to stop it. Houses are actually built IN river courses. No one sees the danger.
'THE JAMAICAN STRENGTH'
We must be really stupid to put ourselves in peril over and over. The stubborn streak of individuality which we point to as part of the Jamaican strength is fast becoming a national handicap. There is no sense in setting up ourselves to be victims, undermining lessons of the past. Until the Government and people together and decide to be sensible and responsible, then the merry-go-round of destruction will continue.
Incidentally, it should be interesting to learn how much it has cost the country to keep repairing the same damage over and over again.
The question may be of little importance, however, since it is clear that people will be returning to rebuild in the same danger zones and the Government will break its back paying for restoration which will be washed away, sooner than later. Talk about fool-fool!
I am, etc.,
HILL DWELLER
