Pauley-Ann Carnegie explains how she ended up building her home almost on the bank of the Hope River in River View, St Andrew.

Over time, many people have built their homes on the banks of the island's rivers and gullies, ignoring the associated risks from flood waters, especially when the country is hit by storms. On August 28 when Tropical Storm Gustav dumped heavy rains on the island, many houses built in those dangerous areas were either washed away, severely damaged or weakened.
Having invested millions in these structures, the occupants say they feel cheated but will not take the blame as in many instances the rivers have eroded the land over time and have crept dangerously close to their homes. Some also say they have no choice but to live where they are.
This series will highlight the plight of those who live in these areas, look at why they were allowed to build in these dangerous areas in the first place, and examine what is happening with our major rivers and what must be done to ensure that they are trained. The series will also look at how these danger zones will be monitored to ensure that not another block is laid, as instructed by Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

If only she had a choice, Pauley-Ann Carnegie's dream house in which she invested millions would not now be perched dangerously close to the edge of the Hope River in River View, St Andrew.

Although Carnegie, like her neighbours, built on 'captured land', she harboured hopes that some day she would own that property.

Then she would have a legacy to leave for her now six-year-old daughter and would be guaranteed a roof over her head in old age.

Charmaine Phillips stands on the edge of a flight of steps leading to her house as she points out where her backyard and neighbour's house used to be in River View, St Andrew before flood waters from the Hope River washed it all away in August.

Today, her hopes have been washed downstream by the Hope River, like the houses of many of her neighbours who lost everything when the river overflowed its banks and took all in its path out to sea.

"I wouldn't even lay another block to that house," she said almost in disgust. "Right now, I am regretting that I spent all my money here."

Nine years ago, plagued by constant break-ins at the house she rented in Duhaney Park and later when the landlord started making her life miserable, Carnegie moved.

With no money to buy property, she was only too happy to hear that a beautiful place like River View could be had for free.

Houses are perched precariously at the edge of the eroding bank of the Hope River. (Photos: Bryan Cummings)

Like the pioneers in the popular television show Little House On The Prairie, she staked out a plot and started building her dream house, literally a block at a time.

"Here really wasn't my choice because I wanted something of my own and I didn't want any capture land, but I had no other option," said Carnegie.

When she first visited the community nestled under the Gordon Town main road, with its high mountains on either side, the river seemed so far away.

In fact, the dry river bed appeared non-threatening with barely a trickle of water in sight.

Over the years, Carnegie saved from her meagre income, accumulating enough to complete a two-bedroom concrete house with living room, kitchen and bathroom.

"I used to throw partner, and so when I get a $40,000 draw or so I would use all of it to buy building material little by little until I was able to build this home," she said.

Today, she is willing to walk away from it all to ensure her safety and that of her family. if only she had somewhere else to go.

"When I see disasters like this taking place, if I had somewhere else I would leave, because each time you hear that a storm coming you have to be wondering what is going to happen to you, and I can't live like this," she told the Observer.

But despite the risk, Carnegie insisted she has no choice but to remain in the house that could topple into the river the next time it overflows its banks. She cannot leave, she said, until she finds suitable accommodation.

"We don't have any choice, because if we had a choice knowing our lives are in danger, do you think we would really be living here?" she asked. "I wouldn't put my child through that because she is so afraid to live here."

As a group of residents nodded in agreement, they all said they want to relocate as they live in constant fear, now that they have witnessed first-hand what the river is capable of.
The 19.6 kilometre-long Hope River rises in the hills near Newcastle and enters the sea about 10 kilometres or six miles east of Kingston.

Joseph Hibbert, state minister in the Ministry of Transport and Works and member of parliament for the area, who is also a trained engineer, said a lot of protective work had been done on this river after rains from Hurricane Flora in 1963 caused it to overflow its banks, creating significant damage. He said this protective work was done between 1963 and 1964.

"Over the years, these have been destroyed and this is why the river is now doing what it has always done," he said.
In previous years, after each hurricane, the residents said their lives would have returned to normal by now. However, following the passage of Tropical Storm Gustav on August 28, every rain cloud is enough to fill them with a sinking feeling of doom.

They said they underestimated the dangers of the river until Gustav drove home the reality that they are indeed living on dangerous ground.

"People have to find a way of survival, and this is how we knew how to survive until now," said one woman.
Many of the houses are sitting almost in the river bed, but the residents said when they were built the river was never that close.

"When we first came here to live the river was nowhere near here," said one woman. "A matter of fact, it was a dry river bed. You wouldn't even know seh is a river there."

At the time they had no choice, many said, as they were unable to acquire housing or land anywhere else.

"Some people have nowhere to go, so Government can talk because dem have money fi build fi dem house, but others like we come see this land and we use we last little money fi build a roof over we head," said another resident.

Pointing to a row of houses perched dangerously under a hill which shows visible signs of land slippage, and nestled almost at the edge of the river bank, Vennice Barnes, a resident of River View for the past 19 years, said despite the danger the people have nowhere else to go with their children.

"A little Africa them call over deh because so many children living there, so you can imagine that they can't just move out with their children and go live on the streets," she said.
The River View residents said any hard rain could cause the hillside to bury them in their homes.

A resident who identified herself as Kacey-Ann said she narrowly escaped death when a mud slide split her house in two, sending furniture, children's clothing and food down the muddy Hope River during Gustav.

All throughout the community the stories are the same. "We are really afraid to continue living here, but we have nowhere else to go."

Some residents are still living in unstable dwellings with huge cracks in the floors and walls and with large sections of the foundations eroded.

One two-storey house, with its cracked concrete pillars resting in the river bed, should have been abandoned, but the occupants said they have to stay there until they can find other accommodations.

A stray dog ran from the dark, abandoned rooms downstairs which are littered with debris the river brought in. A flight of treacherous steps leads from the road above to the house below.

Where the backyard and another house once stood, has been replaced by a gaping hole leading down to the river bed, now topped high with a mound of rubble.

Charmaine Phillips, who lives there with her boyfriend and 11-year-old son, gingerly stepped across the floor with its huge cracks as she pointed out what was once two huge bedrooms where her stepdaughter lived, before the river destroyed it all.

So dangerous did it appear that a member of the news team refused to venture inside for fear it would cave in.
Each day, Phillips has to pick her way through the house, careful of where she steps.

The rooms downstairs are no longer habitable as the earth under the flooring is almost completely eroded.

The rooms on the top floor are not much better, but Phillips said they still have to use at least two of them. The massive cracks in the floors caused them to abandon one, packing everything in the remaining two.

Her clothes, most of which are now mildewed, are folded in a large plastic bag, while her son's school books, damaged by water, are still drying out.

"I am afraid. I just want to leave here," said Phillips, as she moved cautiously around the room.

At nights they can no longer sleep soundly as every drop of rain on the window pane is enough to renew fears that the river could rise again.

"Last week, the rain jus' ah fall and the water come up to here and me no sleep a wink because me spend the whole night looking through the window," she told the Observer.
Phillips said her son is too scared to stay at the house and spends most of his time at a neighbour's house.

Seven years ago, having no place to live, an offer to move in with her boyfriend at his house in River View was the most welcome news.

Today, she wished she had never set foot in the community.
With no income of her own, Phillips said she doesn't have any money to relocate elsewhere.

Some distant relatives, she said, have land in Manchester, but she doesn't have the money to even get there.
"I would have to build up something for myself and I don't have any money at all because I am not working," she lamented.

Pointing to several massive concrete structures with exquisite designs, the residents said a lot of money was invested in building these houses as some of the persons owned the lands.

Hibbert confirmed that some persons are legitimate owners of the land.

"These are lands that were granted to persons sometime in the '50s," he said.

Asked if they were sold through the Government's land department, Hibbert said he thinks this could be so.
The residents said persons who invested in additional rooms for rental to university students, had hoped to recover their money, but this was no longer possible.

Sisters Ann-Marie and Kacey said they came to the area to live as children some time in the 1970s when their mother left rural Jamaica to take up a job at the nearby university.
With six school-aged children, the girls said their mother had no choice but to join others in "capturing' a plot of land to put a roof over their heads.

At first it was a house made with zinc, then later board, until recently when she finally saved enough money to build a concrete structure.

"I remember when we first came here to live, the river was just a little stream you couldn't even bathe in," said Ann-Marie.

"It was just all bush here and the river was all the way over there and so it was never a threat to us, so it is not like we came and build a house on a river bank, it is the river that came to us," said Kacey.

However, even as they decided to build their own houses in the same yard, many years later they said the river was still not seen as a threat.

"When we get big everybody got a piece of the land and we build our own house for us and our children," said Ann-Marie.

They, too, like all the other residents the Observer spoke with say they can no longer live in fear and will readily relocate to a more suitable area, if and when they can afford to.

Coming this Sunday: The situation in Kintyre, St Andrew

Executive Class

Gardens with Gravel

Death to the Mullet!