JOHN’S HALL, St James — A heavy burden appeared to lift from 80-year-old John’s Hall resident Betty Gordon’s shoulders as she watched earth-moving equipment remove silt from the bed of John’s Hall River in St James early last week. Since Hurricane Melissa last October she has been gripped by fear of flooding each time it rains.

Gordon shared the prayer that usually travels from her lips.

“When mi see the rain set, mi fret, mi fraid, and mi have to go down on my knees and beg God, ‘You see and you know mi condition. You know what I’m going through but I am begging you, as a sinner, hear my cry and hold back the rain,” Gordon told the Jamaica Observer.

Well aware that the parched earth needs the rain, she was conflicted as she prayed to the Almighty.

“Even if it come for the Earth sake, but don’t make it come for the river sake because I can’t take anymore,” she would bargain.

The senior citizen has lived in John’s Hall all her life, and before Category 5 Melissa the two houses in her yard never had an issue with flooding. Now the sight of rushing water just metres from her home has become all too familiar.

“Every time the rain fall and the river come down it’s just flooding, right through the house right out to in the road,” Gordon bemoaned.

She traces the root of her problem to last year’s hurricane.

“Let me tell you something, mi born here so 80 years ago, December gone, and a Melissa mek me know seh river can come through here so go in the house,” she told the Sunday Observer.

The storm swept away a retaining wall at the back of the property, leaving it and Gordon exposed to the elements.

“It terrible, man,” the elderly woman said.

Last Tuesday, as she watched an excavator and a National Works Agency (NWA) team dredging the river bed she could not hide her joy.

“I can’t stop thanking the Councillor [Uvel Graham] and the Member of Parliament [Edmond Bartlett] for what they are doing,” she said.

Graham, who was elected on a Jamaica Labour Party ticket to represent the Spring Mount Division, was on hand to supervise the work when the Sunday Observer visited. He spoke of the importance of timing in cleaning the river bed, a lengthy project that had begun two weeks earlier.

“We are entering into another rainy season so that is why we [are] actually doing all possible cleaning now so when we enter the rainy season all will be well in the John’s Hall space,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“The silt level is high so what we’re doing now is to clean it out so the river can flow much faster and easier so we can have less issues. There are some areas where the silt rose up to the road level and now it [has] gone back down to the normal level of the river bed,” Graham explained.

With recent heavy rainfall, the river broke its banks, flooding the roads and residential property making life difficult for Gordon and many of her neighbours.

The work being done is expected to bring much-needed relief, including an area referred to as Tim Pass Lane where a smaller stream runs.

“We have an excavator down there cleaning that area all the way down and then we are cleaning the main river also,” Graham said.

“They will do the most that they can reach because it is not every part of the river that the excavator can actually reach,” he added.

When he spoke with the Sunday Observer the project was already substantially advanced. They had already cleaned sections of the river bed that snakes through the community, including an area near the bridge at Hurlock that had a heavy build-up of silt.

“Hopefully, this scope of work will be finished in another week or so and we’ll be finished,” Graham stated.

Despite the work being done, he is hoping that additional infrastructure can be put in place as a longer-term solution.

“I want to request some retaining walls for the roadway. I know that’s going to cost some money but if we add some retaining walls to the roadway, with a little bit of height, that will contain the water somewhat so it doesn’t override the road at any time,” said the councillor.

“I know it may be a far-fetched plan or to get resources to do [it], but for now what we are doing will help out because we are sinking the river back to its original base. After Melissa… we have a lot of silt coming from Dam Road, Spring Mount, all those silt that enter from all those hills and wash down in the gully and sink down in the river course,” he added.

Councillor Uvel Graham watches as a National Works Agency team cleans a river bed in Tim Pass Lane, John’s Hall in St James, last Tuesday.

Councillor Uvel Graham outside 80-year-old Betty Gordon’s house that has been been flooded by recent heavy rains.

Condition inside senior citizen Betty Gordon’s house after Hurricane Melissa’s flood waters passed through.