KINGSTON, Jamaica — As Jamaica prepares for the possible effects of Tropical Storm Melissa, residents of Burger Gully in Mountain View, St Andrew, spent Friday stacking sandbags along the gully to help prevent flooding.

Longtime resident Hyacinth Thomas, who experienced severe flooding in the past, expressed deep concern about the coming storm.

“Yesterday makes 26 years since my house wash away. The gully burst up there so and it take away we two house them and we nuh get nothing. So right now, we fretting and right where I live, the gully dig out, so anyhow the heavy rain come [it] probably burst,” Thomas said.

She continued, “Mi worried because as we see little rain we start fret because last night mi go a church and the rain fall and mi start fret say a wonder if the gully ago come down and it ago come over.”

Thomas along with another senior who gave his name as Rennie noted that they are prepared to evacuate to a nearby shelter should that become necessary.

“Mi take up mi clothes and put the bed and everything on block to raise it higher. If it [hurricane shelter] necessary…mi going to my sister house on the other side on Windward Road,” he told Observer Online.