This is PART 5 in a series highlighting the plight of people who have built their homes on DANGEROUS GROUND – the banks of the island’s rivers and gullies – ignoring the associated risks from flood waters, especially when the country is hit by storms. The series will also 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.

NN-MARIE Dixon was hoping that she and her seven children would be relocated from what is left of her river-side home in Tavern, St Andrew – at least before the next hurricane season.

However, with very little funding available to speed up a relocation programme for her and many others whose houses are now perched at the river’s edge, theirs could be a long wait.

“If me no get relocated, me no have nowhere else to go. And so, is here me going to have to stay,” she told the Observer.

Although Dixon’s lost her backyard along with her kitchen, she is not among the 456 people on the Government’s priority list since she still has a roof over her head, albeit one that could collapse at any minute.

The practice of constructing houses along rivers and gully banks is set to cost the government more than $200 million, which is the amount already identified to rebuild houses for the 456 people whose dwellings were destroyed during the passage of Tropical Storm Gustav in August.

s for residents along the Hope River – whose weakened houses are still standing dangerously close to the edge of the Hope River – they might be there for at least another hurricane season as Water and Housing Minister Horace Chang said there is no established timeline just yet for their relocation.

“The relocation can’t be done by the next hurricane season because we don’t have the capital or the data to do so,” Chang told the Observer.

In the meantime, the 456 people to be immediately provided with shelter, he said, would either be relocated to crown lands, or have their houses rebuilt on lands they or their family now own.

“We are still looking for additional funding because what we have is not even enough to do this,” Chang said.

In addition, he said Food for the Poor would be building 200 houses for those affected.

According to Chang, the people most affected were those living along the banks of the Hope River and the McGregor Gully in Kingston and St Andrew, Manchioneal in Portland and the Rio Cobre Valley in St Catherine.

The minister said lands have already been identified in West Albion, St Thomas, Darlingford in Portland and Twickenham Park and Quarry communities in St Catherine.

“We have, however, not been able to identify any lands in the Corporate Area that are suitable,” he said.

A series of meetings, he said, was currently being conducted to determine how many persons need to be relocated to plots of land they had identified, versus those who the Government would be required to find plots of land for.

He said that list was expected to be finalised by this Tuesday while relocation for Portland could start as early as next week.

The relocation areas must be Crown lands, and while persons would be required to pay some money to secure official titles over time, the majority of the relocation expenses would be offset by Government.

As for those structures still perched dangerously close to the river, Chang said those cases would have to be dealt with in the medium terms as other lands would have to be identified for their relocation.

“First we have to obtain the magnitude of the problem and mapping of the flood plane region, and how far persons must be removed from the banks, before we can do anything,” he explained.

Some people told the Observer that in the interim they have been forced to rebuild sections of their houses, since relocation for them was nowhere in sight.

“Dem can’t tell wi seh wi mustn’t lay another block, ’cause when dem gawn a dem house wi outta door,” a distressed Karen Whyte, a resident of Quarry Heights in Tavern, told the Observer.

However, Chang said instructions had been given to monitor these areas to ensure that no rebuilding takes place.

In addition, many of these residents may not only have to ride out another storm on the river bank, but will be forced to do so with the knowledge that protective work on the river will not be done before the next hurricane season.

Joseph Hibbert, state minister in the Ministry of Transport and Works and member of parliament for some of the communities along the Hope River, said protective work cannot be done in a year as it is an extremely expensive procedure.

Persons, he said, would continue to be at risk until this work was completed.

“Right now, persons are still at risk and if the rain continues to fall, we will have more landslippage,” Hibbert said.

It is not only those whose houses are at the edge of the river who will be in harm’s way if the river continues to overflow its banks, but other communities such as sections of Harbour View.

Pointing to a report done in 1939, Hibbert said then the Hope River was about 200 feet wide, but today it has been confined to just over 100 feet.

“One has to understand that parts of Harbour View and Kintyre are sitting in what was the Hope River,” he said.

eanwhile, Chang said some work would have to be done to the river, but that was not the answer to the problem if persons continue to damage the watershed areas.

“People are chopping down the Blue Mountain hillside to plant coffee and this is destroying our watershed areas,” he said.

Other persons, he said, have continued to build massive structures on hillsides causing further erosion.

“We will be looking at legislation to address proper land use,” he said.

St Aubyn Bartlett, Member of Parliament for some of these communities also along the Hope River, blames the illegal mining of the river for what is now happening.

“A certain contractor did sand mining and broke the ridge of the river, and so when Gustav came, that river bank breach gave way,” he said.

In addition, Bartlett said residents removed stones from the river to build pit latrines and their houses on the river groin.

As such, he noted that in addition to relocation, there has to be a comprehensive river training programme in place.

He said in 2004 Hurricane Ivan washed away a lot of houses, yet people still continued to live on these dangerous grounds.

During a recent visit to Hope Town Road in Tavern, the Observer team saw a two storey house which was built after Hurricane Ivan. During Gustav, the entire top floor and sections of the first floor of this house toppled into the river.

Bartlett said the team set up by the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) to marshal these areas must be a permanent structure if it is to be effective.

“None of the structures built on the river bank got any approval from KSAC. Instead, what you have is a daughter building upstairs the parent’s house, and the son building on top of that. And, so, what you get is a massive structure onthat type of soil,” the minister said.

“He said he has always called for a river training and mitigation budget in parliament but this was never done.

“All I can call it is politics, because a few years ago I was told that there was $20 million approved for work in that area but three weeks later I was told that it was diverted elsewhere,” Bartlett added.

Meanwhile, former housing minister Donald Buchanan also agrees that relocation is not necessarily the answer.

Instead, he said a strategy must be identified to manage the environment.

“Sufficient attention is not being paid to the environment, and that is why Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller has instructed the environment spokesperson Noel Arscott to examine this issue,” Buchanan said.

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Residents living on dangerous grounds along the Wag Water River in St Mary.