NA floods again; Town Council promises to revamp drainage network in business area

…as sections of Corentyne inundated

Heavy rains drenched Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) on Sunday morning, with between 20 and 50 millimetres falling across the region.
Many villages along the Corentyne Coast were severely impacted by the continuous rainfall throughout the morning, even as the afternoon remained heavily overcast, with slight showers in some sections of the region.
Cash crop farmers are reported to have experienced loses, as sheep and goats were forced to look for higher ground on the Corentyne.

In the Town of Rose Hall, water levels in the Reef, saw some yards completely covered with water from rainfall, as in the neighbouring community of Port Mourant, a pharmacy operator was seen standing in three inches of water inside of the pharmacy, attempting to bail the water with a bucket where the surrounding water levels were too high to facilitate that process.
Miss Phoebe North and Free Yard North were the most impacted communities in the Port Mourant area.
Meanwhile, in East Canje, residents there reported water flowing into their yards during the earlier part of the morning.
However, one of the areas affected most was the town of New Amsterdam, which is the country’s oldest town, the main business area especially.
Mayor Wainwright McIntosh says there is a need to have the drainage network in the business area revamped. He pointed out that heavy littering within the township has been one of the main contributory factors.

“There is a heavy content of plastic bottles and beverage cans in the drainage system at Strand and Pitt Street. The same thing is Chapel Street Strand. So, this whole issue that we are experiencing with regards to flooding, requires a multi-stakeholder approach for us to curb or to put mitigating measures in place,” the Mayor told this publication.
He says the municipality has now been forced to take steps, whereby persons who are found littering will be placed before the court.
“We will be working collaboratively with the Guyana Police Force (GPF) through the town’s Constabulary Department to ensure that those perpetrators are fined and the necessary steps taken to have those individuals prosecuted. Coupled with that, the works committee will start a project to redefine the drainage network, especially the interlock drains,” the Mayor added.

Meanwhile, in an invited comment on the issue, General Foreman Charles Johnson, attached to the town’s engineering department, pointed out that many parts of the town flooded because of the heavy rainfall, notably the business section of the town, Pitt Street, and Chapel Street.
“The reason for the flooding is that the drains are heavily silted; the interlocks are blocked. These are caused mainly by garbage being dumped into the system. The municipality is in the process of putting together a programme to have the entire drainage system within Pitt Street, Chapel Street, and Trinity Street to be redone within the next few weeks. We would be completely excavating those drains, redesigning them, and then setting them back to standard.”
Johnson pointed out that persons within Pitt Street have built up on the reserve, which has contributed to the flooding.
“This is something that we will be addressing shortly,” he said.
“We have also noticed that some parts of Stanleytown and Vryman’s Ervin have been flooding. Residents are responsible for cleaning the drains in front of the yards, and the municipality will deal with the inter-lot. So the residents will have to help us to help them so that we can get the drainage situation in this town under control,” Johnson concluded.

According to the Mayor, the interlock drains within the township need addressing.
“What we are getting from our constituents is that the CIIP (Community Infrastructure Improvement Project) workers need to be more thorough when it comes to their execution of duties and responsibilities relative to the maintenance of our drainage and infrastructure.”
The Mayor pointed out that over the past two decades the landscape of the town would have changed significantly.
Addressing business owners and persons who are developing real estate, the Mayor is urging that they leave the required four feet of the land behind their back fence.
“Now that four feet that should be left remaining is to facilitate workers going into the interlock to have the maintenance of the interlock drains done. In New Amsterdam the four feet is not being left.”
He said even if the municipality were to de-silt all of the drains within the town and the outfalls are not adequately maintained, it will be defeating the purpose.
“The outfalls are heavily silted which means that they must be given the attention needed,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Region Six is expected to witness an increase in rainfall over the coming weeks, influenced by seasonal weather patterns.
The hydro-methodological has forecast rain on Easter Monday, with a predicted 20-80 millimetres of rainfall and possible thunder showers, in Regions Seven to Nine and North Region Six. Elsewhere, partly cloudy to cloudy with scattered to occasional showers.