Flooding results in school shutdown at Vreed-en-Hoop

Students of the Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary School were surprised to find their school inundated with more than a foot of pungent, dirty floodwater when they turned up for classes on Friday morning, and had to return home because it was impossible to conduct tuition under those circumstances.

This newspaper was told that flooding at the facility had become a norm for a number of years, and students are usually sent home when the compound has been flooded.
According to Hilda Stephens, security at the school, the water started to rise at about 18:00h on Thursday evening. The flooding — a result of the high tides coupled with the breakaway of part of the seawall and the removal of mangroves — is a frequent occurrence.
However, Stephens revealed that the seawall has been in a dilapidated state for over seven years now, despite pleas for it to be repaired. As a result, the flooding situation continues on a regular basis.
“I sit down by my verandah and I smelling this water really stinking, and when I saw the water, it was really black. However, when I come to work this morning, the place was flooded really bad,” Stephens explained.
She added that when the head teacher of the school arrived, she met the students standing on the roadway, uncertain as to their next move.
This newspaper was told that when the headteacher arrived, she informed the Education Ministry of the situation, and the students were duly send home.
Persons living in close proximity to the school have said that the stench of the water is influenced by the burial ground, where some of the tombs are currently opened.
“The burial ground is right next door, and all the water from there does run over, and a whole lot of them tombs over there break open; so you could tell how it smell,” another security in the area explained.
When Guyana Times visited the area, residents were calling for immediate addressing of the situation by authorities.
Vreed-en-Hoop resident Karen William called on the Government to urgently look into the situation, which she said is getting worse with the passage of time.
“Presently, the water is really affecting us. Not only us, but the students at the school, and I think that the Government really need to do something about it; they need to come into the area and view it,” she said.
When this publication visited the offices of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC), no one was available to comment on the matter.