Edward Seaga
THIS WEEKEND the news will be dominated by the passing threat by the female hurricane, 'Emily'. Within recent memory, Jamaica has not had two back-to-back hurricanes. This occurred in Dominica in 1979 and 1980, hurricanes Allen and David. I believe that Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti) also had a similar experience. Grenada was recently devastated by a hurricane and is now exposed to Emily. The important point is that it is now Jamaica's turn.
June is the start of the hurricane season. Our problems do not usually arise until the last quarter of the season, September to November. Some have taken this as a sign that the regional weather pattern is changing because of global warming resulting from an observed hole in the atmospheric cover which shields the earth from the worst effects of the sun.
The large industrial nations, particularly the United States, which emit destructive gases in their industrial programmes, cause damage to the atmospheric canopy. These countries have failed to give full recognition to the danger of the temperature rise occasioned by the deeper penetration of solar heating through the atmospheric canopy.
BRING DISASTER FLOODING UNDER CONTROL
Whether the hurricane season has now become erratic or not, the real problem is the damage caused. Hurricane Gilbert in 1989 devastated everything: houses, buildings, crops, roads, electricity and water supply. Rivers overflowed, creating secondary damage by extensive flooding destroying more houses, washing away vital top soil and drowning animals, in addition to the damage of the wind force.
Where 'Ivan' is said to have cost less than US$500 million in damage, 'Gilbert' was a billion-dollar hurricane, costing more than all previous natural disasters in Jamaica, including earthquakes. What the cost will be this time depends on whether the Emily path brings hurricane (over 70 mph) or storm force winds. But one thing that will be certain is that there will be flooding.
It is time to bring disaster flooding under control. Residents of the city of Kingston do not fully appreciate this problem because the Sandy Gully drainage scheme carried out by the Bustamante government of the 1950s, created a master control drainage plan without which considerable damage would have been done to the city, particularly in the inner-city lowlands. For this masterpiece of public works, the early Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government was disdainfully called "gully government". Well we need another "gully government" now - urgently. The savings from expenditure that would have had to be carried out to repair the vast damage if there was no Sandy Gully scheme, have more than paid for the cost of construction of this mega project.
With each repeated heavy rainfall, storm or hurricane, virtually the same areas are now flooded in St. Thomas, St. Catherine, Clarendon, St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland, the low-lying flat areas of the southern plains.
DRAINAGE PROGRAMME NECESSARY
It does not require a rocket scientist to devise a master control drainage system. Sandy Gully was designed by local engineers. They are well able to map out the drainage programme necessary in the vulnerable parishes to construct a drainage system for the southern plains to put an end to the repeated disasters.
Not every area can be effectively protected. When the area is large and flat, the flooding caused is a result of rainwater accumulating on the flat lands, not water rushing in from overflowing rivers or cascading down hillsides. Portmore is a good example of the two types of flood activity in one area: overflow from bordering Rio Cobre and falling rainwater accumulating on Portmore itself.
When the first housing development was to commence in Portmore, shortly after independence, for which reason we called it Independence City, we were aware of the flood potential from the Rio Cobre. A couple of years later, this became a project when we devised an inexpensive method of protection, creating a high land embankment along the river course, but set back to allow a flood plain to capture the river's flood water without it being able to override the high embankment of the berm. It worked. Indeed, the road built along that embankment on the opposite side away from the river is now a popular expressway that Portmore residents have named the I-95 after the popular inter-state highway that passes through Miami.
DRY-WEATHER HIGHWAY
This brings us to another point. It may be possible that some of the major drainage channels could be expanded in design to provide for location of an alongside road, or thinking more radically, location in the drainage course itself. Think of the Sandy Gully from Constant Spring Road, (or somewhat higher), to Spanish Town Road being used as a dry-weather highway. It would substantially ease the traffic problem of getting out of Kingston (or into Kingston) on a timely basis to access the new highways. As things are now, it can take 40 minutes to get out of Kingston to proceed on a one-hour trip thereafter to Mandeville on the new Highway 2000.
QUESTION OF COST
The question of cost is bound to arise. The simple answer is to check the costs now being incurred every time a flood occurs, in massive repairs to roads, fields, crops, houses, welfare grants, crop assistance and so on. to say nothing of production time lost, crop yields destroyed and human suffering through displacement. It should be readily recognised that the investment in a mega south-coast drainage project could possibly be paid for out of savings in rehabilitation of flood damage.
Then there is the funding always available for a properly-conceived scheme, from the multilateral institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank.
Thirdly, there are the 'savings' which could be generated by foregoing expenditure on extravagancies, bearing in mind that it will perhaps cost more for Government to finance the cricket World Cup, particularly in the construction of a white elephant cricket stadium in Trelawny that will never pay its way, or serve anything more than occasional use.
POLITICAL WILL
There is really nothing to stop the construction of a network of channels and gullies in the southern parishes to bring the devastation under control. What is really required is political will and perhaps the motivation that such a complex of canals could employ many thousands of workers to carry out what is essentially, straightforward construction.
Let us hope that another 'Gilbert' does not hit us head-on, even though that is what is perhaps needed to get effective action.
Edward Seaga is a former prime minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies. E-mail: veritasja@lycos.com.
