WESTERN BUREAU — Heavy rains lashed Montego Bay early Friday morning, leaving several homes in the Cornwall Court Housing Scheme flooded and thousands of dollars in damage to household items.

The residents said it was the third major flooding in their community within the last 18 months.

“We were flooded out in October 2000, January 2001 and now we are flooded out again,” one resident told the Observer yesterday morning.

According to Thelmarine Jackson, one of the residents who lives on Belize Avenue, at about 3:00 am during the heavy downpour, water from off the road started to seep under her door and into her house.

“Soon afterwards the water started to rise and at one point it rose to about 10 inches,” Jackson said.

She said an alarm was made, and residents came to her assistance. Two children, aged four years and 20 months, who were at the house were removed by residents while help was sought from the Montego Bay Fire Department.

Jackson said the water destroyed many of her books, damaged her carpet and a number of household items.

Up to late yesterday several items of damaged clothing were stacked on her verandah along with a mattress, more than 10 pairs of shoes and other household articles. Jackson yesterday afternoon worked feverishly to mop up the dirty water and remove the debris from the house.

But she was not the only one on that street who was affected by the floodwaters.

Another resident told the Observer that he lost a component set, clothing and several pieces of household articles as a result of the water that swept through his house.

And while the full extent of the damage caused by the heavy rains was not ascertained up to late yesterday evening, president of the Cornwall Courts Citizens Association, Valin Green, said quite a number of homes had been affected.

He said homes were flooded, walls collapsed and building materials washed away by the water.

Just over a year ago, residents of Cornwall Court demonstrated in front of the Montego Bay offices of the National Housing Trust, developers of the housing scheme, to protest the flooding of their homes.

After the protest, the NHT spent thousands of dollars to put in place what they say were corrective measures to prevent further flooding.

Yesterday, senior director at the NHT, Patrick Brown, said corrective measures put in place at the housing scheme after the protest included the construction of additional drains, cleaning of drains, the resealing of roofs and the instillation of drainage pipes.

Residents, however, said that these measures were not far reaching enough.

“The work that they (NHT) did last year isn’t enough, we are still being flooded out,” said one resident who has been living in the area for more than three years.

Meanwhile, Brown told the Observer that the contractor yesterday had a team of workmen in the area and that another team was on standby in case of any eventualities.

“The team on standby is in a state of readiness to work in case of more heavy rains,” he said.

He added that teams from the contractors of the scheme and his technical department also did an assessment of the damages caused by the heavy rains and a report should be ready by today.