Heavy rainfall, flooding force closure of govt-run schools in G/town, East Coast, East Bank Dem.
Wednesday, 27 November 2013 – by Denis Scott Chabrol – Demerara Waves
Residents along several coastal area on Wednesday (November 27) , woke up to flooded yards, lower flats, streets and even roads due to heavy incessant rainfall.
While several huge pumps have been activated, gravity drainage into the sea and rivers is not expected until around 6 PM Wednesday.
The last low tide was at 4:39 Wednesday morning. Since then, the tide has been rising again and is not expected to drop again until 5:38 PM.
Forecasters attribute the heavy rainfall to the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). “Rain and more rain” is expected, but Guyanese can expect a slight ease on Thursday.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Agriculture advised the General public that the current heavy downpour has resulted in parts of Regions 3 and 4 under water. Currently, the NDIA, Ministry of Agriculture and the Region Administrations are taking all measures to ensure that the water recedes effectively.
Thus far, all Kokers in these areas are functioning to ensure that the water effectively drains off-land in a timely manner. However, the NDIA is cautioning persons to assist by unblocking all internal drains in residential areas.
The Ministry of Agriculture would also like to assure the public that the situation is under control and for persons to be responsible and not to incite a panic mode.
Cabinet Ministers and other Government officials, and engineers will also be visiting affected areas.
Residents in low lying and riverine areas are being asked to take precautionary measures against rising water levels.
Kindly contact the Ministry of Agriculture on hotline number 227-5049/223-7291, if the need arises.
Comments
And then the rains came…but the rainy seasons are well known. Was home recently. Saw frantic digging of drains etc. Would it be helpful if drain -digging was a maintenance routine by the authorities? Would it be helpful if residents cleared drains around their properties? Would it be helpful if Public Health Officers be visible in communities issuing summonses to folks who are too busy to clean their drains etc?…and penalties must be stiff enough to encourage positive actions. Apparently some folks have come to expect the authorities to do certain things for them. The Guyana I grew up in had people who helped themselves…then there was an authority that promoted self-help. What happened to us? Authorities frantic, some residents don’t help themselves and now school children must lose at least one day of education..in effect, pay the price for adult sins. Can Guyana really afford that?
u have to know facts before making comments on situations in guyana. drains have not been cleaned over 5 years. trenches, canals have not been dug to accommodate extra water when it rains. selective property owners are filling gutters and trenches to extend their land.some people are very creative by using trenches and drains, even their neighbours yards to get rid of their garbage. the problems are multi-faceted but r. solvable. the clean residents cant do it alone, but many try to make a minute difference. guyanese are not like the rest of the world who will take positive action to get rid of negative phenomena. many love the present circumstances under which we live. but unless infrastructural works are carried out we will experience disasters like today
Remember such days of flooding during my days of growing up in Guyana. The day off from school was a reprieve and a time to launch our paper boats on the water.
When I went to Sunday School over forty years ago, we used to sing a song that went like this. ” The foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came tumbling down, the rains came down and floods came up and the house on the sand went flat. The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the house on the rock stood firm” The lesson here, being to prepare well for a rainy day, that will surely come, Preparation musts be done by all, individuals, families, schools, companies. May God help us .
I hope mayor Green and his people cleaned up the trash in time.Otherwise Guyana/Georgetown must now be looking like its soon to be relative the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch / Trash Vortex.” The only difference is that one is inhabited, posing an even graver and immediate threat.
This is not a Mother nature’s disaster but sorely man made, If the politician could quit playing politics with people’s lives and do the job they were elected to do , there will not be any disaster of flooding in Georgetown. Why the people of Georgetown keep electing these dead beats to run the City?????????????
The Chinese mafia is messing up the culture of Guyana with their Agenda 21 buildings..no wonder the place is flooding with all of their construction and breaking of regulations in constructing those skyscrapers which weren’t meant for withstanding the soil and you see why GT is slowly sinking with the weight of these buildings.
This is for Mr. Hawley Holder – I agree with you but the people in Guyana is lazy and don’t care where their next meal comes from, whether it be stealing, mugging etc. My sister lives in Bel Air Park and that used to be the place of the upper class like Beverly Hills of California. My sister lives in Bel Air Park and she cleans her drains and even put mesh on both ends of her property in the drains but her neighbors does not clean or care. Her house was flooded including her other property on Howes Street. The house next to her threw all their garbage and blocked the drain causing floods to others. She is a widow and fends for herself..I left Guyana in 1966, two weeks after Independance with two children and my then husband. I went back five times and each time was worse. The only time I will go back is if I have a family emergency. I donate money to the Guyana Medical Relief every year who takes medical supplies to the hospitals there. How come they don’t have a law to fine people for littering.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is my take on this matter of City administration: I am against fines – people pay fines as a cost of doing business and carry on with the same ignorance. Where I live in Canada, we changed environmental protection laws to persuade us that there is a need for a culture change in that regard.
If the company I work for, for example – let’s say, improperly disposes car batteries and Environment Canada [as an aside, I like the way Canada changed all the names of our agencies so that it could be easily translated into French – that is why I am impressed with GO Invest – we know it means Guyana Office of Investment – attractive labelling] – so, Environment Canada comes into the terminal to inspect the facility and discovers batteries in the garbage bin [they call it dumpster, up here]. In the past, the company would be fined and we carry on business as usual. Another cost of doing business.
About a decade or so ago, we were all hauled into an office to be lectured and given every piece of information necessary for us to fully understand that the law has been amended. If batteries are found improperly disposed in the garbage bin, the mechanic who placed it there would be fined [I suppose the mechanic who removed the battery from the vehicle is the one]; the supervisor who ordered the disposal [he is aware or ought to be aware of that activity]; and the company would be fined individually.
In the past, the company would pay all the fines as a cost of doing business. Today, that is prohibited by law. You would not dare dispose of a battery in the garbage bin, because your co-worker would not report you to the boss – they would phone Environment Canada and an inspector would show up unannounced for a routine inspection – the very day the battery is improperly disposed – Horrors!
Here is my point: Guyana needs a culture change. The foregoing is one idea. I am all for ‘community service’ – if you are caught improperly disposing garbage, order the culprit to perform community service. Have the culprits join a clean-up crew with reflective vests and clean-up the mess they caused, supervised by a Municipal Police Officer. If you fail to show, then you are dealing with another offence: contempt of court and jail time.
Here is the downside: Some party will come along and promise that they will abolish the law, so that decent people will never have to suffer the humiliation of cleaning up the streets again as part of a clean-up crew. And, the current administration doesn’t want to tempt fate and lose the next election by coming on too strong – like a power-drunk enforcer with a heavy hand – then analysis paralysis sets in – this happens all over the world. So, wha’ we gon’ do?
“Guyana needs a culture change.”
One (out of many) definition of culture is, “shared beliefs and values of group: the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation or people.”
Guyanese share a culture that is as good as any and better than many.
And I dare anyone who labels them as “lazy”, to cut & load cane, to dive for diamonds in the Mazaruni river, to plough a rice bed… and rake it… and sow it with rice seedlings… against the constraints of time and climate to ensure a crop in 90 days time. And not as a hobby; but to earn a decent living for one’s self and family. I am reminded of my grandmother sniping that mouthar and guitar and guitar are two different things.
I know of the era when the whole yard put their garbage in a container at the entrance or threw it into the alley at the other end.
Each week the “M&TC” men would pick up the garbage and put it in the horse-drawn rubbish cart. The “gutter men” would clean out the concrete drains and cart off the debris. If there was a parapet, the viscous scum and solid waste would be spread thereon and in due course the elements would compost it all. A lime – like product would be scattered over the deposit presumably to kill bacteria and the smell. Maybe it was DDT to prevent mosquitoes; I really do not know.
The concrete drains led water into the alleys which emptied into a drainage canal. These canals would empty into the Demerara river
BUT
the land is low lying; and some structure had to be in place to prevent the river water from backing up into the drainage trench and flooding the area. The Koker was invented for just this purpose. But here is the thing. As soon as the water on the riverside of the closed koker got lower than the water on the land-side, the door should be up or on its way up to maximize on the six-hour window for drainage. Six hours because that was the average tide interval.
Koker watchmen are unsung heroes.
Those men had to be in place to raise and lower those doors on time.
Just imagine yourself at two o’clock in the morning in wind and rain winching up a combination of many 8ft. long, 3″ thick, greenheart planks and the metal hardware that held them together… and the damned thing gets heavier and heavier as it comes out of the water. (Remember Archimede’s Principle?).
My point is that effective drainage of Georgetown depends upon a well coordinated effort involving men and equipment. Fooling with any part of it can cause the collapse of the whole.
Things tend to get tragic when the unknowing believe that their high office and or their ego alone make them think that they can flout the laws of science.
It is a universal ailment that seems to afflict politicians.
What about being proud of one’s surroundings? Where is the self esteem and pride? Seems that Guyanese have lost all sense of pride. The blame for the deplorable condition of what once was the ” Garden City” must be shared by ALL parties, the Mayor and Town Council, the Government, AND to a very large extent the Guyanese people on the whole. This problem solving undertaking must be a collaborative one that includes EDUCATING THE PUBLIC, willingness to beautify one’s surroundings, reliable equipment, allocation of an adequate amount of funds, and cooperation among the legislative body, the M & TC, the health department ,businesses, and property owners. Politics ought not play any role in this matter. Enough finger pointing has already occurred, with no concrete solution or results, now what Georgetown needs is ACTION.
One can only conclude that the Minority ruling party has other plans for GT which it is not ready to reveal to the general public. Perhaps running GT to the ground where it becomes impossible to salvage, then relocating the Capital to some other region. Who knows? Apart from a lack of pride of the citizens, do the members of government also lack pride in the city in which the seat of government is housed? Heaven help Guyana, the Guyanese people, especially those who live in and around GT. They are being TOTALLY IGNORED by their elected representatives, and in particular the ruling minority party.
Whenever I hear the call to “ACTION!!” I am reminded of the the following story from my school days.
http://www.umass.edu/aesop/content.php?n=3&i=1