Before the floods came, Gloria Williams and her husband Ivan had a yard full of flowers. Banana and ginger were planted nearby, and they could sleep in their own beds at night.

Now, like many in New Market, St Elizabeth who have been displaced by the rains from Tropical Storm Lili, they bunk with relatives and can only look longingly at their home and wait for the flood waters to recede.

In the meantime, not even the thought of government assistance will make them move. They prefer to be close to their remaining water logged possessions, their land and animals, and refuse to budge an inch towards the approved shelter two miles away at Lewisville High School.

“Dem a tell mi fi leave down here but mi have two pigs and two cows. What mi a go do with them? Dem want mi fi go live inna some school (but) mi can’t do it. Mi a working man, mi wi go crazy,” Ivan Williams, a 62-year-old farmer, told the Sunday Observer.

With each passing day, the flood waters seep across Hopeton and Payns Town into New Market, filling Thankie Valley, spilling over into the town, blocking the main roads that lead into Darliston.

But residents will not relocate.

One make shift shelter – the community centre that houses a furniture workshop and a barber shop – has become a haven for 25 year-old Mark Cohen and 14 other persons, including five children who spend their nights there.

The elderly Williams couple, whose three-bedroom home is inundated, sleep with their son, Vernal, but have their furniture stored at the community centre.

The flood victims’ decision not to utilise the designated shelter means that they will receive little, if any, assistance from the parish disaster team – a fact made clear by Yvonne Morrison, the parish disaster co-ordinator.

“If they are staying in the shelter they will get help. If they don’t, it means they are not affected,” Morrison told the Sunday Observer.

She explained that the decision to give assistance to only persons who have sought refuge in shelters was based on past incidents. In those cases, some people who unaffected by bad weather have lied about their situation and benefitted from the offerings of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM).

That aside, Morrison said that when she went to the community centre on October 5, there was no one there and she would not leave supplies without someone signing to acknowledge the delivery.

“When you go there you don’t see anybody. The beds are spread up and everyone is gone, so what should I do? I can’t just leave the things with nobody there,” she said.

Residents like Gloria Williams maintain, however, that they will not move. They said they were relying on each other for assistance.

“They want us to go to Lewisville, but why we need to go to Lewisville when we have mi son. Mi have mi mother, mi can stop with her and we have friends; so we say we nah go a Lewisville (so) dem say them nah render no assistance, no bedding, no food…” she said. “But mi nuh bother worry myself, mi nah hungry. You can’t depend on government fi everything. You have to make yuh way yuhself.”

At any rate, her husband, who estimates he has lost a quarter of a million dollars due to the flooding of his farm, said the assistance they required was a few sheets of zinc and some paint to repair their home after the water recedes. But he does not hold out much hope of this coming from the government.

For the time being, the elderly couple can only look with longing at their flooded home, eager to move back but knowing it will be some time before they can.

“We lose plenty ground because the yard cultivate up. We plant ginger and we banana and so forth. When yuh come a mi yard inna de dry you don’t want leave because flowers, everything pretty up. It’s a nice home,” Gloria Williams said.

Added Ivan: “Sometime mi woulda put a sponge down and lie down. But still we haffi wait until de water die down and mi life nuh gone. Whatever we have we share it and mi nuh hungry.”

His primary concern now rests with ensuring that his two cows do not drown and he will be talking to a fellow farmer to put them up for him. But that will come at a cost.

“Mi have two cow a bush and mi haffi walk miles to get to them and everytime mi go there, the water come up lickle more. Mi soon can’t get to them, so mi haffi go move them,” Ivan said.

He is not the only one who has problems with his livestock. One woman who did not give her name complained of her inability to sell her chickens because of people’s unwillingness to buy.

Their fear, she said, was that the continued rising of the flood waters would result in the loss of electricity and refrigeration and the inability to store the chicken meat.

As for 25 year-old Cohen, his concern is with his furniture business, which he runs with his friend, Alan Lewis, 20.

Not only was Cohen’s home flooded out, but he lost 100 chickens, which he said represents $20,000.

All he wants now, though, are a few sheets of zinc to repair the roof of the community centre that houses his business and serves as the temporary sleeping quarters for 14 other people, including his aunt and her family.

He also needs paint to give the place a face-lift but does not feel he will get that either.

“Some people come check out things, but when things like this happen people always come and by the time the water fi dry up nobody nuh responsible fi yuh again,” he said.

‘Anyway, it (the flood) done happen already and you can’t mek it get on top of you because you can’t do anything ’bout it,” he said.

As it happens, his decision not to rely on the possibility of help to repair the centre was not without merit, since the ODPEM’s Morrison made it clear that the makeshift shelter was not a part of their responsibility.

“We can’t do that. You can’t have a shelter in a flood-prone area. We can’t fix it for them. We can’t take up that responsibility. They have to go to the right shelter,” she said.

Meanwhile, she said 106 residents of the New River community have gone to the shelters, including the Sharon Baptist Church and Basic School that are prepared for them. In addition, she said six families were at a shelter at the Maggoty High School.

All these people, she said, had received bedding, food and clothing, and as soon as the water recedes the damage to their homes would be assessed and estimates sent to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for financial aid.