Repairs to the broken koker door at Stewartville, West Coast Demerara will be commencing today, according to a Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) official.
Ravindra Ramnarine, a GuySuCo official attached to the Uitvlugt Sugar Estate, was supervising the installation of a temporary door after the original koker door was severely damaged by waves caused by the spring tide on Tuesday.
He disclosed that works to install a temporary door at the koker began around 6:30 pm on Tuesday after they received reports that the strong and persistent waves caused by the spring tide had damaged the original door. He said that up until 4:00 yesterday morning, GuySuco workers were still on the scene. However, he said, not half an hour after they left the “temporary door,” which they installed to prevent flooding from recurring during the tide that was scheduled for 5:14 yesterday morning, they received reports that the door had already been damaged.
He added that just after 6 am yesterday, GuySuCo’s construction team was dispatched to repair the temporary door that was installed. “We didn’t get to fix the door properly because the high tide catch we so today (Wednesday) we came back and we dismantled the damaged false door and secured it more properly,” Ramnarine said. Thus far, he said, the estimated cost of the temporary repairs is more than $1 million. He said that repairs to the temporary door finished shortly before Stabroek News arrived on the scene yesterday, which was around 4:30 pm. He further stated that the newly repaired door is expected to hold off the waves until tomorrow.
Ramnarine also disclosed that the materials to permanently fix the koker door are already on site. Throughout the course of yesterday afternoon’s high tide, which began at around 5:32 pm, he along with a few others, monitored the koker to see if the waves would cause any damage to the newly repaired temporary door.
Meanwhile, Stewartville residents living close to the area where the koker is located, said that while the water in the canal began overflowing when the temporary door broke yesterday morning, it was nothing compared to the flooding which occurred on Tuesday evening. A woman, who asked to be addressed as ‘Daughter’, told Stabroek News that after works to install the temporary door began, water slowly began to recede but around 4:30 yesterday morning, it started rising again. “It [the door] broke back because I come downstairs around 4:30 and when I gon upstairs back, I heard a hard knock and when I watch out, I see the water rushing in. The water didn’t come in as [rushing] as it did before,” she said.
Another resident, who wished not to be named, agreed with ‘Daughter’ saying that he noticed the water flowing into the trench with little force. “The water level started rising slowly but it didn’t rise like how it did rise yesterday (Tuesday) and then them workers come back and it gone down back,” he said. He added, “high tides don’t really affect us over this side but because the koker break, we get lil flooding.”
