MONTEGO BAY, St James — With mud in the drains from recent rains adding to the sludge left by Hurricane Melissa, many residents of Catherine Hall in this western city are afraid to sleep at night.

They are worried they will have to once again head to higher ground as flood waters inundate their homes. The residents say the drains in their community have not been properly cleaned since last October’s Category 5 storm.

“We are in big trouble here, man. The drains are a very important part of this community because if the water is clogged up in there with the nastiness and there is no lead out, it’s going to cause problems,” a nervous Melsha Oates told the Jamaica Observer during a recent visit to the area.

While residents are relieved that there has been progress in removing mounds of debris from their property, each time it rains panic sets in. It is worse if the rains comes when it is dark.

“When rain fall in the nights, you can’t sleep; my mother is 77 and she can’t sleep. We just wake and watch because we missed drowning by this [much],” a resident who gave her name as Stacy said, holding two fingers a hair’s breadth apart.

She wants ongoing work on the West Green leg of the Montego Bay Perimeter Road to go faster, convinced there is a link to the challenges they are facing.

“I’ve lived here from 1995 and this never happen yet and it’s all because, you see that road that they are digging, there is no urgency being placed on it. They’ve blocked the drain to open a different channel and they are not hurrying to do it,” Stacy said.

She lambasted those with responsibility for cleaning the drains as in her view, “everybody has dropped the ball”. There have been promises, she said, but no one comes.

For another resident called Jody, it has been a stressful time since Hurricane Melissa.

“Every time is rains, we go through the same trauma. On Tuesday night it rained and I don’t know if we sleep that night because we are saying what if we are going to flood out again,” she said.

“When it rains, in my lane, it’s either we stay in or we stay out. Our drains are blocked with the mud from the hurricane. Every time it rains that is our reality. Another hurricane season is approaching and we don’t know what to expect because the drains are not clean,” Jody lamented.

She said there have been meetings held and information provided indicates that some help is on the way but, for now, they are still in limbo.

“We don’t know what is happening, we don’t know the plans. Usually we would have tried and do things for ourselves but we have so much repairs to do in our houses,” she said.

She too is worried that another hurricane season is on the horizon and the mud and silt build-up from the last one is still in the drains.

Her mother Dawn spoke of what is it is like living with blocked drains and fear.

“When rain falls, it rough, you can’t come out. The water start block up the place and you can’t come out the house,” she said.

“Because the drains are full, as long as the rain fall the water just come back in the community,” she explained.

When the area is not mired in mud, it is shrouded in dust that competes with mosquitoes to force them to seek shelter inside.

Mud, along one section of the road in Catherine Hall, flows into already overburdened drains making life difficult for residents when it rains.

Water that cannot be accommodated by the clogged drains pools on the ground around parked cars in Catherine Hall, St James. 

A drain, at Catherine Hall in St James, that is badly in need of cleaning.