Flood victim could only stand and watch everything go
SOAKED mattresses and pieces of wet clothes strewn in front yards and over walls were a common sight in sections of Nightingale Grove housing scheme off Old Harbour Road in St Catherine last Thursday.
Watermarks on several houses, some as high as five feet, showed just how intense the flooding was in this community which has been severely impacted from the heavy rains dumped on the island by Tropical Storm Nicole.
For many it was a case of deja vu, having been flooded out time and time again during heavy rains. But others like Nicole Chambers were ill-prepared for the angry water which gushed through their houses, taking everything in its path that it could.
“People normally bawl out “flood, flood!” but nobody not bawling out again, and because me never know what to expect me no get no time to save ah thing,” Chambers said.
When the Observer visited she was attempting to wash mud from her house, clothes and the little that was left of her furniture.
Chambers said she and her boyfriend stood in the rain at the highest possible vantage point in the community on Wednesday to ensure that no one looted their house.
But there was nothing to loot, as everything in the house was completely destroyed.
“Me lose everything, all me plate and pot the water just wash them out a the house and me just had to stand up and watch everything go,” she said.
“When me come back in here me see the TV a float on the water and the whole a the chester draw foot dem come off,” she added.
According to Chambers, she is in desperate need of a dry mattress as efforts to wash the mud and grime from the one she had rescued were proving unsuccessful.
“We don’t have a bed to sleep on right now, and so we would really like someone to help us to get back even a bed,” she told the Observer.
“My boyfriend was trying to take out the TV when we see the water start come in, but it move so fast that it catch the socket and the TV start shock, so him haffi just run leave it,” she said.
Her boyfriend, Joseph Smith, said the water gushed into the house so fast they did not have time to remove any of the items to higher ground.
He explained that they had spent the better part of Wednesday watching the river which appeared to have been very calm, even though the rain had been pouring since Sunday.
“Is eat me was eating me food and me just step out here and say mek me see how the water stay now, and when me look me see the water start come in off the road, and before we could pack a safety bag it just gush in and we have to run out,” he said.
Smith said Wednesday night they were lucky enough to find a hotel which allowed them a bed for the night for a reduced cost. But with their funds running low they had no idea where they would be laying their heads until it is safe to return to their home
Allison Charlton, another Nightingale Grove resident, is eight months pregnant and all the diapers and other items she had bought in preparation for the baby’s arrival were lost. A water-logged pack of diapers was the only evidence of the things she had prepared for the baby.
“I lost everything and I am having baby in November, so I don’t know what I am going to do,” she said.
Evadney Maxwell, another resident, said although she has heard about the constant flooding in Nightingale Grove this was the first time she was experiencing it.
Like some other newcomers, Maxwell said she did not have time to prepare before the water rushed into her house.
“The people them who use to it build things and put up them furniture, but because me just come down here come live me never know what to expect,” she told the Observer.
“I always hear about water coming up and washing away people, but is the first in me life ah ever experience something like this,” she said.
The water had receded in several sections of the community when the Observer visited but the constant and steady downpour only increased the anxious looks on the residents’ face.
In the adjoining community of Spring Village, the road was severely scoured as the water which had flooded the roadway left many huge craters.
Other areas which were flooded in St Catherine included Thompson Pen, Tredegar Park, Ensom City, Bushy Park and Lauriston.