Dear Editor,

Two Fridays ago I was stuck in traffic during the heavy rain. I had offered to drop home two blind people, one off Windward Road and the other on the other side of town, in Ackee Walk. It took me four hours from just before dark to do that and get home. Every thoroughfare was bumper to bumper as some alternative routes were made impassable.

I crossed the Sandy Gully twice and observed water flowing, but nowhere near its capacity. As I made my way home around 9:00 pm I noticed that the water on the flooded roads had receded. It seems to me that the Sandy Gully, much maligned when it was built by the Alexander Bustamante (“gully government”) Administration of 1949-1955, continues to serve its purpose.

It seems to me, as well, that the flooding problem is due to the fact that subsequent developments have failed to properly channel their surface water into the Sandy Gully or, perhaps, the tributaries to get there are inadequate.

The relevant authorities should assess and explain why so much flooding takes place during heavy downpours when the basic architecture for disposing of that water continues to perform even after 75 years.

Bruce Golding