MONTEGO BAY, St James — The flood-prone Creek Street area of Montego Bay isn’t the best location for a business, as Kemar “Kespo” Mighty well knows. Over the years he’s seen his enterprises under chest-high flood waters from the South Gully.

At Mighty’s One Stop Auto Imports he offers used cars and auto parts accessories for sale and also operates a car wash and sports bar.

“It is bad. In order to survive with this business and the flood I would have to remove everything off the property,” stated Mighty. “Whenever the flood comes, I can’t save anything. Even my vehicle business, if I am not quick enough the vehicles would be flooded out.”

With the start of another hurricane season he is now looking at the possibility of building a ramp on which to elevate the cars. He has suffered significant losses in the past.

“We are going to get someone to come and do some measurements and to tell us the type of material they think we would be able to use, and give us the cost,” Mighty said, adding that efforts are being made to secure the funds needed for the project.

But even while he has a plan to save the inventory in his used car business, he has no easy solution for his other activities in the area. His only option, he said, would be to “remove everything from the property, dump it [up], and put in some proper drainage… in order for this business to survive”.

The entrepreneur is convinced the South Gully and other drains in the city have outlived their usefulness.

“The system that was implemented before was not done properly. The drainage system is too small to intake the capacity of the water that is coming from the top. I don’t know how they can address that,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Deputy Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon (Jamaica Labour Party, Montego Bay South Division) also believes the city has outgrown its gullies. His major concern for the current hurricane season is whether the city’s drains will be able to cope if there is heavy or prolonged rainfall.

“The only things that we fear where the weather is concerned right now, with respect to drains, is heavy showers on the hillside, siltation on the lower end when heavy showers occur, and our drainage capacity not being able to carry the amount of water that may fall within a short period of time,” said the councillor.

“If we do not have any of those, we should be good for the season,” he added.

The drains are being depended on to handle a huge volume of water and silt from higher points in the parish. The muck that washes down, Vernon said, is often a result of improper storage of construction materials such as sand, stone and cement from communities such as Farm Heights, Green Pond and Cornwall Courts. The improper disposal of garbage is also an issue. Vernon said the local municipal corporation, of which he is a member, “should consider ramping up enforcement where these things are concerned”.

Mayor of Montego Bay Leeroy Williams, who agreed with Vernon’s stance, said efforts are underway to meet with the police on the issue, hopefully next week. He also said he has instructed the Roads and Works Department of the St James Municipal Corporation to ensure that construction material is not left on the roads where water can then wash them into the drains and gullies.

In addition to the North and South gullies, the Montego Bay South Division has approximately seven critical drains.

The councillor is particularly concerned about the North Gully.

“A number of sections of the North Gully have been compromised. Those compromised sections need immediate attention because the gully itself can collapse,” he said.

He explained that, in some areas, the walls and floor of the gully have been eroded while in some sections — such as the heavily travelled Salt Spring Main Road — no wall nor floor exist.

Through the Lengthsman programme, the local municipal corporation has been trying to do regular cleaning of the section of the North Gully that runs behind the St James Parish Court, along Embassy Place to the third bridge on William Street. There is also “a drain-cleaning crew employed by the corporation as staff workers , and they do ongoing drain cleaning. They do v-drains and u-drains and in cases where assistance is needed in doing major work, they are assigned the major task to get those drains clean”, Vernon said.

While the St James Municipal Corporation is responsible for the various drains in the city, the National Works Agency (NWA) is responsible for gullies. Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Everald Warmington, who has oversight for the NWA, recently promised a closer look at the North and South gullies while the massive perimetre road development is being done. Vernon has welcomed the news.

“We have to be spending millions of dollars to maintain both infrastructures. What is probably needed from the NWA perspective is a special fund to deal with both gullies because we are the ones who have to be taking up the responsibility at all times to ensure that the gullies are in a state of readiness,” he said.

Mayor Williams said he has instructed all councillors to ensure that all drains are cleaned, to minimise flooding. He is confident that St James, in general, is “well prepared” for the hurricane season.

He said all managers are in place for the 62 shelters across the parish, which are also well equipped with items such as flashlights and blankets.

In June of each year, the corporation dedicates its Parochial Revenue Fund (PRF) to drain cleaning in preparation for climate change activities and the hurricane season.

The PRF is allocated by the Ministry of Local Government to all municipalities each month for road patching, drain cleaning, and bushing, among other related tasks. The sum that each division receives yearly is dependent on revenue earned from property taxes, motor vehicle licensing, and other fees or investments collected in the parish. All divisions are slated to receive $600,000 each this month.