MONTEGO BAY, St James — Member of Parliament for St James East Central Edmund Bartlett has declared that the continued flooding of sections of the Estuary Housing Scheme is an emergency that requires immediate attention.

Bartlett spoke to the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday after diverting minister with responsibility for works Robert Morgan from a tour of rain-affected roads in the parish to show him the conditions residents in the Estuary Housing Scheme are now facing.

“I think it is an emergency, and I am calling on the National Housing Trust (NHT) and West Indies Home Contractors Limited (WIHCON) to treat Estuary as an absolute emergency and to provide the resources and technical support to relieve the people of the absolute agony and health hazard that has become the reality here,” declared Bartlett.

Rain over the weekend into Monday afternoon left one section of the scheme submerged, with water reaching about four feet in some areas.

The situation is a legacy of Hurricane Melissa, which caused a nearby pond to overflow its banks, leaving the area submerged. More than 20 houses were affected.

A section of the road also collapsed, damaging the drainage system. As a result, heavy rainfall now causes flooding because the run-off cannot drain away properly.

Member of Parliament for St James East Central Edmund Bartlett (right) shows minister with responsibility for works Robert Morgan (centre) and Councillor Uvel Graham (Jamaica Labour Party, Spring Mount Division) the flooding in the Estuary Housing Scheme on Wednesday.

According to information provided by residents, repairs to the drainage system are expected to be completed by December 2026. However, there are serious doubts about whether that deadline will be met, given the slow pace of work.

The latest bout of showers forced at least one family to pack up and leave, despite hopes that the situation would have been corrected by now.

“It is unfortunate that the NHT and WIHCON together did not do the fix in time so that this set of rains that have come now would not have had the impact that we are seeing,” Bartlett stated.

“They started to do the repairs — in fact the pipes are here — but they stopped. And nobody can explain properly to me why they have stopped,” he continued.

Bartlett also highlighted another challenge facing residents, who must contend with rising water levels whenever it rains heavily.

“What I am being advised is that the people who live on the elevated areas, the sewage is a disaster and everything comes down into these lower areas, and that sometimes when they actually flush the toilet they see the sewage coming up back,” Bartlett claimed.

“The hard, cold facts are this is untenable. You cannot have sewage and water staying for such a long period of time — an obvious result from poor sewage management arrangements,” he added.

Equipment and material for the repairs of drains are seen in the Estuary Housing Scheme on Tuesday. 

During his visit, several residents looked on, with some voicing their frustrations over a problem that has plagued them since Hurricane Melissa almost one year ago.

One resident explained that, despite pipes and heavy equipment being brought into the area to facilitate drainage repairs, progress had been painfully slow, even after a similar experience in September.

“There is a whole sense of almost [a] what do we do, bewilderment kind of feeling,” Bartlett said following his interactions with residents.

“They are happy to see us, of course, but that’s only part. The solution is what they want, and so the implementation gap has to be filled and must be filled now by NHT and WIHCON,” he added.

Bartlett said the situation needs to be addressed promptly to give residents greater confidence in their living conditions.

“This is a fix that must be done, and as Member of Parliament I am insisting that immediate action be taken by the NHT and WIHCON,” added Bartlett.