HEAVY rains that lashed sections of the island on Monday evening into Tuesday morning sent the Yallahs River into spate, rendering a ford at Mahogany Vale impassable and leaving dozens of residents in both St Thomas and St Andrew stranded.

Barbara Ffrench and her daughter Moya O’Gilvie, who live in St Thomas close to the St Andrew border, were among those affected.

Up to early afternoon yesterday, Ffrench and her daughter remained on the St Andrew side of the river.

“I have been stranded here since last night. We had to sleep with some people and all now we can’t get home,” Ffrench told the Jamaica Observer.

Maxine Anderson operates a small shop in the hills near the Yallahs River in St Andrew.

On Monday, she assisted more than a dozen persons, including schoolchildren, who were unable to cross the river to get home safely.

Although living in the St Thomas communities of Hagley Gap, Minto, Epping Farm, Ness Castle, Penline Castle, Cedar Valley, and Georgia, many students attend schools in Kingston, among them Camperdown, Holy Trinity, and The Queen’s High School.

Most of them will need to stay with Anderson or other kind persons in Mavis Bank until the water subsides.

“I put up at least 18 persons, including a lot of schoolchildren, last night. They could not cross the river and we just have to help them out. They got food and a night’s rest,” Anderson said.

The residents say they have been crying out for assistance for ages, but nothing has been done to ease their plight.

The St Andrew side of the river is represented by Damion Crawford in Parliament while James Robertson is the member of parliament for the residents on the St Thomas side.

“If the two of them could come together and build a decent bridge or even raise the ford higher so that we don’t have to face this every time some serious rain fall we would be very grateful. We can’t go on living like this just because of rain. Some children might not be able to get to school until Monday,” one man said.

Further up the river at the Robertsfield ford — made famous by Clifton Brown’s

I ‘Nobody canna cross it’ statement — the situation was the same. Only this time two men crossed the raging waters on foot.

One man said he had arrived from the United States Monday evening but was unable to get home due to the raging waters. Several students and teachers of Mavis Bank High School were also stranded and were forced to make their beds on the school compound in the coffee farming community.

Last evening, the Meteorological Service extended the Flash Flood Watch for low-lying and floodprone areas in St Andrew, St Thomas, Portland, St Mary, and St Ann and advised residents to take precautionary measures and be ready for quick action if flooding occurs.