LUCEA, Hanover — With the country currently in the hurricane season and the parish of Hanover spared the worst during the passage of Tropical Storm Elsa on Sunday, the Hanover Municipal Corporation is moving to have several critical drains across all the seven municipal corporation’s divisions in the parish cleaned.

Chairman of the Hanover Municipal Corporation Sheridan Samuels, who was unable to give the cost to undertake the exercise and a start-up date, disclosed that the over 20 drains that had contributed to minor flooding experienced between last week Tuesday’s heavy showers and Sunday’s passage of Tropical Storm Elsa are of great concern.

“These drains are drains that we know are always blocked and have an impact on the communities in which they fall. So, we are getting ready now to deal with them,” said Samuels, who is also mayor of Lucea.

“As a matter of fact, those are the drains that we had minor flooding on. Bearing in mind that we never got the amount of rainfall that other parishes got, we were saying that if we had gotten those, then it would probably have some serious effect on us.”

Four such drains that are of concern are located on Dam Road and Wharf Road in the Green Island division.

Samuels said the Parochial Revenue Fund (PRF) that is provided to the corporation from the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry for June is normally put aside for drain cleaning in the parish.

He added, however, that the amount will not be sufficient to clean the drains, but “the corporation will have to use what they will be getting the best way possible.”

“We have identified where we can get some funding already. But, it is going to cost a bit more to complete all that we have to complete, but we will just have to use what we are going to get from the PRF to the best of our ability so that we can remedy what is there now. So, the critical ones, we will move on right now,” he stressed.