MILL BANK, Portland – Eight families – whose houses at Mill Bank in the Rio Grande valley were damaged during Hurricane Dennis – are to be relocated, according to interim Mayor of Portland Rupert Kelly.

The houses were destroyed by a massive landslide. One house remains covered by mud, residents say.

“I was up at the club when we hear that things a gawn down yah,” said resident Lloyd Moore, recalling the incident.

“I come down and start help Miss Evadney Green to pull some things out of the house. After the rain start, people move out and then the ‘broke way’ come. Eight houses were mashed up,” he said.

Kimberly Bryan, Portland’s disaster co-ordinator, said about 26 persons, who lived in the houses, are getting help. They have already been given clothing, bedding and food.

Kelly said he was advised by Member of Parliament Dr Donald Rhodd that the 26 would be relocated on forestry lands at Bowden Pen, which is close to the St Thomas border.

Banana farmer Glenovan Webb, 64, who was born in the area and has lived in Mill Bank all his life, insisted to the Sunday Observer that the area was no longer safe for residential purposes.

“The area is a disaster area. The hillside come down and just cover four houses down there. One bamboo root come down and dig through the bedroom and go right into the living room – a disaster area this,” said the farmer.

Webb recalled that Mill Bank last had a major disaster, with fatalities, in 1937, when another landslide killed an entire family.

“It come right down and cover them,” he said, adding that under circumstances, it was a good decision for them to relocate the people. Them cyan go back down there and build any more houses.”

Webb himself has no plans to leave, saying Mill Bank is where he makes his living. The roof of his home also got damaged during the hurricane, but he has already started to repair it.

He and his brother have planted 16 acres of bananas for the export market, and like the rest of the St Mary and Portland belt, had just got their fields back into production, following their devastation during Hurricane Ivan of last September.

“As the banana come back after Ivan, Dennis come and blow it down,” said the 64-year-old farmer. But as with his house, he also already started to clean up his farm and is almost ready to replant.

Kela Smith, a mother of two and pregnant – who lost her house and furniture – says she is willing to relocate, saying the flooring and underside of her house remains covered with dirt.