Photos by Arian Browne
A pair of long boots is always hung in a bag on Eon Clement’s gate during the rainy season so that when he returns home he can manoeuvre though the floodwater in his yard that is almost always awaiting him.
Clement, of Lot 11 Middle Street, Pouderoyen, is one of the many residents of Pouderoyen, on the West Bank of Demerara, who are enduring worsening floods whenever it rains and no response from regional authorities.
Clement told Stabroek News that there had been many complaints to the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) but nothing that would ease the problem was done and like others he felt as if no one cares about his problems.
During a visit by this newspaper yesterday to Pouderoyen and nearby Malgre Tout, also on the West Bank of Demerara, some residents expressed anger and frustration that their pleas for relief seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
“If I alone have to go to town every day and protest just to get somebody to come and see and do something I will do it. I fed up man…every time it rains this place flood out. You go bed and if it rain you wake up, put down your foot and is water to your knee,” Ann Bowman, 62, who is known throughout Pouderoyen as ‘Aunty Ann,’ told Stabroek News yesterday.
Bowman and other residents lamented that the flooding they face whenever it rains has intensified and they are worried not only about the losses of household items but their health. They stated that their plants and livestock are also threatened by the flooding.
Bowman believes that the problem is due to the blockage of a main canal in the village by a rice farmer as well as the clogging of drains and water outlets in the community. This, she said, was due to the laxity of both the NDC and the Regional Democratic Council (RDC), which have been ignoring their pleas that the drains and trenches be cleaned.
In addition, she explained that the kokers at nearby Versailles had been condemned and the villages’ waters are now drained villages away at Phoenix Park. However, the trenches that span that area are filled with weed and garbage, making drainage difficult. As a result, it takes at a minimum 5 days for flood water to be drained from flooded yards and sometimes as long as two weeks if there is continuous rainfall.
Bowman said that she complained to her village councilors, then to opposition parliamentarians. She said that yesterday when she called APNU MP Joseph Harmon to once again
highlight the problem, she was told by him that his area was also flooded.
Efforts to contact officials at the NDC proved futile as Stabroek News was told by a man in the compound that everyone was out doing field work.
‘No one cares about us here’
Over in Swan Street, Malgre Tout, damage there seemed the worst. When Stabroek News visited sometime after 11am, many residents could be seen attempting to do damage control as they relocated items from their lower flats to higher surfaces. Some just stood and watched their livestock as they said that the animals, mainly sheep and goats, were prone to falling into deep areas and drowning.
Hazel Abrams took Stabroek News for a walk through her yard and home as she explained that for the past five days she has been affected by the flooding to the point where she keeps her children home from school. “It is time someone do something… every time is the same thing and no one don’t even come to say, ‘Look a disinfectant or a bottle of bleach.’ Nothing. No one cares about us here, no one,” she said.
Hamina Mohammed explained that this situation is so stressful that she becomes physically ill. Yesterday she was receiving medication for a pinched nerve. Nonetheless she was overlooking construction work at her home, the
lower flat of which was flooded. “My losses are so much that I can’t take anymore. I get sick. Real sick. This is not right at all,” she said.
The villagers are hoping that with the problem highlighted in the press, the regional authorities will visit and come up with a swift plan to alleviate and possibly end their flooding woes.
