AT least eight people have now been confirmed dead as a result of the flood rains associated with Tropical Storm Nicole.

When the final tale is told, the damage and monetary cost will also be catastrophic.

Jamaicans hardly needed to be told by the Government that there will have to be rejigging of an already austere budget in order to meet the fallout.

The society is troubled by the reality that much of the grief and loss could have been avoided had stated policies been implemented and rules obeyed and enforced in relation to land use and building codes.

Even more troubling is that we have been through all this before — many, many times.

After every disaster of the type we have had over recent days there is hue and cry about people living and doing business on the banks of rivers and gullies and across natural water courses.

A quick check in the Observer archives revealed Dr Barbara Carby, the former director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, appealing in October 2002 for the development of a compulsory relocation policy in flood-prone areas.

“Can we afford to continue spending the country’s resources on responding to these incidents when we know that the population can avoid them?” Dr Carby asked back then. “… we cannot continue to divorce our science from our planning and our management,” she added.

She was speaking in relation to a then flooding episode in New Market, North West St Elizabeth.

We need not check to know that Dr Carby’s comment would have gained plenty of traction and support in the wider society.

But back then, as soon as the rainy season ended and the flood waters in New Market drained away, Dr Carby’s advice was discarded and forgotten. The society moved on to other things.

In classic Jamaican style, the entire episode was just another nine-day wonder, as this newspaper fears the current disaster — including another flooding of New Market — and the resultant hue and cry will soon become.

The nine-day wonder mentality is precisely the problem. For in the type of democracy that’s practised in Jamaica, elected politicians and, ultimately, the State respond to pressure from potential voters and the movers and shakers in the wider society.

This newspaper believes that if, as a country, we are ever to adequately cope with prolonged heavy rain over a few days, then the pressure on our leaders to properly manage land management/use and the physical environment must be sustained.

We note and applaud the current efforts to ensure that any development of the Palisadoes shoreline should embrace protection of its ecosystem.

We believe there has to be the cultivation of a culture that encourages such rigour in every sphere of land or marine development.

For example, there is obvious need for scrutiny of the land development approvals being granted by our local authorities. As Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said recently, “It is very clear …that in a number of places it is the blocking and dumping up of the natural run-off that is causing the kind of flooding we are seeing in some of these areas.”

To repeat: a strong and sustained lobby in defence of the physical environment must be developed.

And it can’t be left to a few environmentalists. All sections of society, including media, church, community groups, trade unions and those very powerful organisations in business and commerce should join.

Failing that, we will all be back where we are now, year after year.