One can’t help but notice when driving through St Thomas and Portland the devastation and the grief occasioned by heavy and persistent rain that has been pelting these two parishes literally for the last two months.

The heavy downpours have caused severe damage to both private and public properties, with residents clamouring for assistance to ease their wretched plight.

The parishes’ main economic activity, agriculture, has taken a beating, with many farmers losing their crops and also the ability to quickly recover and replant. Water supplies have been interrupted with roadways looking more like ponds.

In St Thomas, the progress of the Observer’s North and East team was halted at Bowden in a long line of traffic as heavy waters poured across the main road.

Most motorists did not want to risk driving across what was essentially a raging river.

“This has become so common these days, we as motorists are severely hampered and inconvenienced by the constant rain and its effects on us, not only as motorists, but also as residents of Bowden and surrounding areas.

“The already bad roads have become much worse and we are really feeling it, plus we have to deal with the mosquitoes and you what that means. It is a difficult time for all of us here in St Thomas,” a female motorist who teaches in the parish and who did not want her name to disclosed said with great passion.

Further on from Bowden at Stokes Hall, residents poured out to greet the Observer team, telling of their woes and imploring that their message of need be disseminated to the powers that be.

While in Stokes Hall, a resident informed that it was now a common occurrence for water to be flowing through his house. Other residents displayed damaged furniture and clothes.

Probably one of the hardest hit St Thomas areas is Golden Grove.

The Seprod-owned and -operated Golden Grove sugar factory which employs over 800 workers, directly or indirectly, is now closed mainly because of inundated fields and some damage to the sugar factory itself.

Factory manager at the Golden Grove Sugar Company, Dalton Brown, explained.

“The persistent and heavy rain has adversely affected us. It has been very difficult to harvest the cane during the period and there is quite a bit of mud that come in with the cane as our fields are very wet, so our production process is lengthened as we have to wash the dirty cane. We persisted for a while, but we forced because of the rain to close down the factory on May 25, after what many considered the heaviest and most sustained rainfall we have seen even over the last two months.”

The Golden Grove factory manager said the financial personal at the company were at present putting together the figures to assess the financial implications of the rain and the closure on the bottom line of the company.

“The rain and its impact is really affecting our bottom line because, for one, you do not have the necessary through-put at the plant in terms of processing the required tons per day.

“Additionally, when the fields are wet, the cane absorbs a lot of water, so the actual sugar content of the cane is lowered, thereby severely affecting the amount of actual sugar we produce here at Golden Grove,” Brown informed.

Separate and apart from the drop in production and the lowering of the cane’s sugar content, the sugar plant itself has also been damaged by the rain and accompanying heavy wind.

“On May 24, a day before we closed the factory, we had a very heavy downpour of rain with heavy winds; it was more akin to storm conditions, and as a direct result, we had damage to the roof of the factory.

“It was really bad and when we checked it was found out that over the period mentioned, there were over 15 inches of rain in the Duckenfield area alone. That’s a lot of rain in any language,” Brown stated with a worried look imprinted on his face.

As to when the factory would resume operations, the factory manager was uncertain.

“We took a decision to reopen on May 30, but we had to overrule that decision as more rain came tumbling down.

“We here at Golden Grove have to be constantly assessing the situation, but what I do know is that if the rain continues we will be unable to reopen,” Brown said.