Dozens of residents in several St Catherine communities were flooded out and hundreds marooned after heavy rains lashed the parish Wednesday evening through yesterday morning. The damage was most evident in the communities of Bannister, Red Pond, Bullet Tree and Nightingale Grove.

At least two schools in the parish – Good Hope Primary and Tacius Golding High – were forced to close as a result of the floods.

In Bannister and Red Pond, a large pool of muddy water rendered a section of the main road impassable, marooning several residents. The water was waist deep at the highest point of the pool, which was some 50 metres wide at some points.

“Some people can’t even leave them house, they are marooned,” Gerald Henry, a resident of the area, told the Observer.

At one home in Bannister, a female resident could only stand on her steps and peer out as water surrounded her home.

“Me can’t leave from yesterday,” the woman shouted as the Observer news team navigated the water in the community. The large pool prevented the news team from venturing near the woman’s home.

The large pool of water left residents of at least 10 districts unable to travel to the nearby town of Old Harbour.

“A lot of persons can’t go to work or school,” one man said.

A few metres into the district of Bullet Tree, sections of the road were torn away by the force of the flood waters. Several residents complained of losing chickens and crops. A water mark about three feet high was clearly visible on the walls of some homes and large boulders, marl and stones littered what once was the road.

According to Clarence Heslop, the road was recently repaired and the destruction after just a few hours of rain showed that the work was shoddy. A rough measurement by the Observer revealed that the torn asphalt measured less than an inch.

“The road just fix and look deh, it pop weh,” Heslop fumed. “Them come give we shorthand work and the first time a good rain fall everything mash dung.”

In Nightingale Grove, more than 30 homes were affected by flood waters and residents could be seen trying to salvage their possessions, which were soaked by waters which flooded their homes.

Residents say a river which runs behind the community overflowed its banks and caused the damage.

One of two elderly sisters who were evacuated from their home during the flooding, returned home after the waters receded, but her 53-year-old sister, Vinette Johnson, was forced to remain with her relatives.

Johnson is wheelchair-bound and lost the use of her motorised wheelchair when the waters rushed into her home and soaked the engine.

“It was night and it all happened so fast. We were forced to rush them out of the house, and in the rush the wheelchair was destroyed. It is her only way of getting around,” Johnson’s niece, Karelle McKenzie, said.

According to McKenzie, several school children in the community lost all their school books in the flood.

There was also damage in the communities of Hill Run, Hartland, Bushy Park, Barry Road and the Pleasant Hill section of the Sligoville main road where a large chunk of roadway was washed away.