After enduring a wet Christmas, residents of Trafalgar and other villages in West Coast Berbice, can now breathe a sigh of relief as the floodwater has receded in most of the areas.
Persistent overnight rainfall coupled with a spring tide last week resulted in several areas on the Coast and in the City being inundated on Friday. However, for residents of several villages in West Berbice around Trafalgar, the water coming down from the rice farms and backlands added to their woes.
As a result, the area was flooded on December 23rd but the levels went down the following day. However, according to one of the residents, John Lynch, on the night of Christmas it rained heavily again which caused the water levels to rise.
However, when Stabroek News visited the communities yesterday the floodwater had already receded from the land which surprised the residents.
Several months ago, a lightning flood left the communities inundated for several weeks.
As a result of the rainfall, a defective pump station and a clogged outfall, Trafalgar and the surrounding villages were left under water for about three weeks.
“I was surprised as to how fast the water went down to be honest. I can’t remember the last time it went down this fast cause I remember the last flood we had it took weeks for the water to even go away,” Jenny Richards, a resident of Trafalgar related. She explained that the water only lingered on the land for a few hours before it started to recede at a fast rate.
Residents also pointed out that this time around they did not suffer any major losses since the water did not get as high as it did the last time. “Last year I remember my whole kitchen garden de flood out and it was under water long, long but this time, even though the water come up two days it didn’t reach so high and it run off fast, fast,” Lance Facet related.
“Nobody ain’t get no damage or losses really and people had a good Christmas cause Christmas Day the water went down and it only come back up on Boxing Day. So it was good, this time around it was real good and we hope that it stays this way when another flood try to come through,” the man added.
Areas that were covered in several feet of water in June were completely dry. Persons were out of their houses and in their yards, as compared to the day after the flood earlier in the year.
All of the residents Stabroek News spoke with expressed their surprise at how fast the water went down. “Once the rain doesn’t fall as hard as it did over the past few days then we good. We real good because the water ain’t staying anymore. All them work that they do throughout the year finally come to use,” another resident, James (only name given) said.
The water went down quickly because the two large pumps at the Trafalgar Pump Station were working along with four other mobile pumps that were placed at strategic points around the community.
Residents also ex-plained that in addition to the pumps that were placed before Christmas there was also a hymac in the area doing remedial cleaning of the canals to ensure that the water flowed.
