This is what remained of a three-bedroom concrete house, which was washed away by raging flood waters in the Beach Road area of Bull Bay, St Andrew. Several residents in that community had to be rescued by soldiers of the Jamaica Defence Force Airwing, after several houses were washed away when a nearby river overflowed its banks. (Photo: John Nicholson)

THREE people were confirmed dead yesterday from the floods caused by Tropical Storm Lili, which has played a cat-and-mouse game with Jamaica since Friday when it started threatening the island.

A fourth person, in Trinityville, St Thomas, was reported to have been washed away by flood waters and feared dead in the storm.
Additionally, approximately 725 persons were in shelters by last night, relief officials reported and Prime Minister P J Patterson ordered his People's National Party (PNP) election candidates and other PNP representatives to stay in their communities in help in flood relief efforts.

These young men scrap an Isuzu Trooper that was washed away and lodged in a yard at Eight Miles, St Andrew, during yesterday's heavy rains.

Up to last night Lili was dumping tonnes of water on Jamaica, and the rains were expected to continue into today when the storm is expected to make a gradual turn to the west-northwest and a slow drift away from Jamaica.
By late afternoon yesterday, Lili, according to Jamaica's meteorological office, was 16 miles north-northeast of Jamaica's northwestern city of Montego Bay, moving westward at just over four miles an hour.

Lili began to bear down on Jamaica on Friday, threatening an almost frontal slam of the island from the east. But it shifted slightly northward, taking Jamaica out of its direct path and begun a slow, meandering movement, generally towards the northwest.
The heavy winds and rains which Jamaicans had braced for Friday and most of Saturday didn't materialise to the extent expected. However, the island started to feel the brunt of Lili early Sunday as the stormed pummelled the island with thundershowers, causing floods.

The eastern parish of St Thomas, already saturated from previous bouts of rain and floods, was particularly hard-hit and there was where the deaths were reported. Scores of families were flooded out in Trinityville, Yallahs, Bull Bay and Seafort, Heartease Norris and York. The Jamaica Defence Force used helicopter to fly relief supplies to the parish.
The police identified two of the victims as:
. David Fitzalbert, 49, a JUTA taxi operator of 33 Starfish Avenue, Harbour View, Kingston 17.
. Elsie Wilson, 58, higgler of Trinityville, St Thomas.
The third confirmed victim was an infant, whose identity was not ascertained but was believed to have been connected to Wilson, who was apparently washed away by flood waters while walking on the Trinityville main road.
Fitzalbert's body was found on the compound of the Yallahs Primary School in St Thomas and the police theorised that he was driving in the area and got into trouble in flood waters.
A fourth person, an unidentified woman from Trinityville, was reported to have been washed away in the floods and was up to last night still unaccounted for.

Officials at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) said about 530 persons were in shelters in that parish, with the bulk of them being at Phillips Field All-Age School and the Yallahs Comprehensive High School.
In Kingston, another 168 persons were in shelters, just over 100 of them being housed at Fire Baptist Light House Church in New Haven, Kingston 20. In Clarendon about 25 persons were sheltering at the Osbourne Store All-Age School.
Nine shelters have been opened in Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon and St Thomas by the ODPEM.

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