KINGSTON, Jamaica — Angry residents of Waterhouse, Seaview Gardens and Riverton City mounted a road‑side protest on Monday at the Sandy Gully Bridge on Spanish Town Road, demanding urgent intervention to clear the gully and shore up its banks before the next heavy rain.

With placards in hand, demonstrators said the waterway is clogged with debris, overgrown with trees and eroding on both sides, posing a threat to lives, property and the busy Spanish Town Road corridor.

“I live right beside the gully and whenever it rains I cannot sleep,” said Riverton City resident Simone Gayle. “Couple months ago … I personally saw an alligator in here and it took about 15 men from Riverton to pull it out.”

Gayle said the stagnant gully now breeds clouds of mosquitoes, “mosquito inna breakfast, mosquito inna mi lunch.”

She added that the insects aggravate the skin of her autistic son and that she spends nearly $50,000 a month on destroyers.

“Mosquito down here have we under gun point,” shared a frustrated Gayle.

Other protesters said they fear catastrophe if a storm hits.

“The residents from Waterhouse are asking, we are begging the Prime Minister to come and fix our gully … The kids are not safe. The gully is undermining more and more by the day,” one woman told Observer Online.

“Clean the gully and nuh skim off the top because election is coming up, clean the gully,” expressed Gayle.

Member of Parliament for St Andrew Western, Anthony Hylton joined the protest and described the current state of Sandy Gully as the worst he has seen in years.

“What you’re witnessing is really the destruction that has happened to a part of the Sandy Gully … Both walls on the east side and the west side (and) the floor … are destroyed,” Hylton said. “All you need is a little more sustained rainfall and we could have total destruction.”

Hylton said a recent downpour brought flood‑waters within “two or three feet” of the bottom of the Spanish Town Road bridge, adding that the gully farther downstream near Seaview Gardens is “totally blocked – it’s forested.”

He questioned why, despite repeated warnings, the issue remains unaddressed,

“This borders the prime minister’s constituency … and to my certain knowledge the prime minister has never appeared here to see what is happening.”

The MP dismissed suggestions that his annual $20 million Constituency Development Fund (CDF) allocation could fix the problem, arguing that major repairs would require central government resources. He said roughly $300 million earmarked in this year’s budget for the gully is far from enough.

“Three hundred million can’t fix nothing in Sandy Gully and they know this,” he stressed.

Hylton warned that collapse of the bridge would cripple commerce across Kingston.

“It’s a clear and present danger … If the bridge is destroyed then all of Jamaica will feel the effects,” he stated.