MANDEVILLE, Manchester — With the majority of its staff in St Elizabeth affected by Hurricane Melissa three weeks ago, Southern Parks and Markets (SPM) says it is working assiduously to clear the pile-up of garbage now chocking several communities despite manpower challenges.

Regional director at SPM Sheldon Smith told the Jamaica Observer that more than 100 staff members suffered damage to their roofs and flooding of their homes and it will take more than one week to effectively start tackling the garbage pile-up.

“One of our major challenges is our human resource, because our staff have been adversely affected… They are coming out now, but in the initial stages we had to be moving workers from Manchester and Clarendon to go to St Elizabeth,” Smith said on Wednesday.

“That has seriously impacted our ability to give the service to the Jamaican people that we ought to give. That is my main issue right now. I have one zone in St Elizabeth where every single worker was affected,” he added.

SPM, a subsidiary of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), is responsible for clearing solid waste in Manchester, Clarendon, and St Elizabeth.

Smith explained that staff have had to be reassigned from their parish of work to assist neighbouring areas.

“Most of the work that we have done to remove debris has been done by our Manchester team in St Elizabeth. I am asking for people to bear with us, because our workers were severely affected. We have a lot of contracted tippers out there working, especially in St Elizabeth. They are doing their best,” he said.

According to Smith, despite the challenges, SPM has strived to maintain cleanliness in town centres across the three parishes.

“What we did post-hurricane for those areas that were not so badly affected, we had our saw men and our tippers and [contractors] to try our best to clear our town centres as best as possible so that [people] can traverse and move easily,” he said before giving a breakdown of each parish and the challenges faced.

“For the most part Manchester isn’t bad, especially at the centre of the town. We have an issue with the southern belt of the parish, but we are on it. We are working on it,” the SPM director said.

“We don’t have a disposal site in Clarendon, so it takes a little more time to remove the waste. We have some areas that we have a little pressure on in the southern belt of Clarendon. In the northern belt accessibility is a problem. Central Clarendon is not so bad, but we have challenges. We are doing our best to cover [the areas],” added Smith.

He reiterated the huge volumes of solid waste in St Elizabeth that his staff have had to be constantly clearing.

“In the Black River area, that is total devastation. We have been assiduously working, especially at the Black River Hospital. We have removed numerous [truck] loads of debris from the hospital. We are trying to clear their parking area. We are also trying to clear some space where they will be putting some containers for temporary services to the people.

“Presently, their maternity ward is in a house, so they have asked us to clear those areas where they need to put these temporary medical facilities. The town itself, most of the roadways have been cleared between us and the NWA (National Works Agency). We have been trying our best to remove the downed trees and shrubbery out of the area,” Smith added.

He said the focus is now advancing towards clearing large housing schemes.

“We started to go into the larger housing schemes, like Newtown and Luana. We have to be removing debris and household waste at the same time, so it is a huge challenge,” he said.

“In the Santa Cruz challenge, flooding was there and the debris that came into the Santa Cruz area blocked the roads. NWA and ourselves did a lot of clearing of debris in the town, so we are moving around better now, but there are some areas which have been inundated,” he added.

Smith said access remains a challenge where fallen concrete poles have hampered SPM’s ability to service some areas.

“The wooden poles we can move, because we have a crane truck to move [those]. We are awaiting JPS (Jamaica Public Service Company) in certain areas to remove the [concrete] poles so that we can access the areas to move the debris and the garbage.

“St Elizabeth is a huge challenge… We are up to the task and we have been going on. We communicate with the citizens to let them know where we are at and how we are progressing and how we can reach them, but for all the areas that are accessible, we are [hoping] that by the middle of next week we reach everyone. We are trying our best to remove the household waste and the debris… We are trying to create a balance. Jamaica will build back stronger,” he added.

Smith, who strongly advocates the containerisation of solid waste by using drums, pointed out that some animal feed bags can be used to dispose of garbage.

“We know that during the hurricane a lot of [garbage] drums got blown away… especially in the St Elizabeth area. We understand that the containerisation in drums is a challenge, so if they can use the chicken feed bags, the dogs can’t rip that up so easily and [people should] tie them properly,” said Smith.

A pile-up of garbage in Park Mountain near Santa Cruz in St Elizabeth last week. (Photo: Garfield Myers)

Residents try to salvage what they can from the rubble left by Hurricane Melissa in Black River, St Elizabeth.