Fear is growing among residents of New Haven in St Andrew that when heavy rains associated with Tropical Storm Melissa begin to batter the island, flood waters and crocodiles will invade their living space.

The residents, who are expecting the worst from the weather event, claim that a failure on the part of the authorities to properly and frequently clean a river, a gully and drains that run through or adjoin the community, is the cause of their woes.

Their trepidation is also grounded in the fact that during heavy rainfall, the community becomes flooded and crocodiles begin to roam.

“I am afraid of the crocodiles that could come out of the water on us. When the water starts to sweep them away, they will come on land looking for safety. A lot of them are in the gully and the river, a whole lot of crocs. The mouth of the gully needs to be cleaned overall,” one resident, who gave his name as Noel, told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.

“Anytime the gully and the trenches are clean, things will be better. We notice that the Government doesn’t come around until times like these, but how can you want to clean the drain now when water is already coming? That should have been cleaned from a longer time,” he said.

He added that Riverside Drive in the community is already in a terrible state from a recent brief shower of rain.

“Riverside Drive, down there is terrible. No rain nuh fall yet and around there is terrible. Water is settled on the road. When the big gully is blocked up, the water can’t run. Everything that comes down stream, it lodges.

“Many times the crocodiles come up and over into the yards. The way they made the mouth of the river, it is a mess. They didn’t build anything to separate the river and the gully. When the river comes down, it meets with the gully water and that causes problems. When the river is high, it pushes the water on land because it can’t run freely,” he lamented.

Another resident, who gave his name as Frass, said that the community is in trouble and that very little can be done at this point. He claimed that no interest has been shown by the authorities to ensure the drains, river and gully are cleaned periodically.

“The gully has to be cleaned for all of this water to run. While this needs to be cleaned, the main problem is the big gully. We always talk about these things. Now we have stopped talking. We are expecting the worst. This community floods under normal rain so if a hurricane comes, there is nobody who can really help us,” he said.

“Not even the Government can do anything until after. What I am saying is that they can’t just plan to clean the gully, because it is late. They now have to plan for after the disaster. Nobody is focused on developing the community. They are focused on partisan politics. All I see is some reactive things going on. This problem is something that has been documented by the media over the last four years,” he said.

Pointing to the existence of crocodiles and the excessive pile-up of plastic bottles in the river trapped by an overgrown tree and debris, Frass said: “Look in the river, it’s a bottle party going on. It’s a crocodile nest. A tree has grown in the river and has been stopping the flow of the bottles and debris and everything. When the hurricane starts, whether it wants to be Melissa or whoever, just understand that no good will come from it if the river and gully are not cleared properly.

“All of the water from everywhere else comes down in this gully. From up at Duhaney Park and in the hills, the water comes down here. We took out a few of the crocodiles already but there is much more. They are ferocious at this moment. They eat dogs and things with blood. They are looking for people now ” he said.

“When the community floods, that’s where we are going to have a problem because the crocodiles can turn up in your yard and eat children and the elderly,” he said, adding that not every yard has a high fence to keep out the crocodiles and even if there is a fence now, there is no guarantee it will hold up during the storm.

“A judgement fi we inna this,” he declared.

“The last crocodile we took out, he was in a man’s backyard as if he was waiting for him to come home. We had to catch him and we carried him out on the front and the authorities came for it. This was about six months ago. It was a big monster. One of them jumped out at a person who was on the gully side. We had to get him out as well,” Frass said, adding that the man, in that instance, was bitten by the crocodile.

Plastic bottles trapped in a waterway in New Haven, St Andrew, are a contributing factor to frequent flooding in the community.

New Haven resident Noel points to bottles that block the free flow of a river that runs alongside the community.

This drain was on the verge of overflowing in New Haven, St Andrew, on Friday as Jamaicans braced for impact from Tropical Storm Melissa.