The city council has employed two additional excavators as it continues to work on clearing the Meadow Bank canal to bring relief to the residents who have been experiencing flooding for nearly two weeks.
As a result, the water in First Street has begun to recede, albeit slowly but in Second Street the water remains stagnant.
Residents had expressed concern about the possible health hazards associated with the water. It was particularly worrying, they said, that the school children had to walk through the water to access the main road to go to school.
When this newspaper visited the area, a girl about ten years old had to take off her shoes and socks before wading through the water to get home.
One resident reported encountering snakes in her home which she attributed to the flooding. Josephine Armstrong, a resident of the area, said that every time it rains the streets become flooded. She opined that this was due to the roads being “low”.
Meanwhile, the two stalls on the road which had not been destroyed on Saturday are no longer standing. The road is now clear of stalls. The only stalls standing are the ones which are outside the Fisherman’s Co-operative Complex but it is expected that these will be removed shortly. This action will see the complete removal of stalls from the area.
“Why couldn’t they tell we move we stall before they break dem down?” questioned Michael Lewis. Lewis who has been selling fish for the past 25 years at the location said that this was the second time that this had happened to him. When the elderly man was asked about his future plans, he said “me ain’t know what to do, me head spinning.”
He is of the opinion that the stallholders should have been given some amount of notice before their stalls were destroyed. He added that this would have given them time to move them, instead of having them completely destroyed.
His relative, Orin Lewis who also had his stall destroyed said that if the canal had been cleaned regularly then it would not have become such a problem. He is hopeful that stallholders will be given space at the Co-op Complex so that they could continue to earn a living.
At present, he said, the majority of stall owners who usually carry on a thriving business at the location are unsure of their future.
Last Tuesday, Minister of Local Government Kellawan Lall ordered that all fishing boats in the area be removed so that drainage works could be carried out. The fish stalls were then demolished by officers from the City Constabulary so that the excavators could have access to the dam to do maintenance works.
