Residents in Canefield, East Canje Berbice are at their wits end with the constant flooding in their area as there are several drainage issues within the community that the Canefield/Enterprise Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) has failed to act on.
For the residents of the last crossing in Galaxy Street, Canefield, they are left to wonder about how often their kitchens will be flooded now despite surviving the major 2021 flood.
It was explained that an overseas-based Guyanese within the area decided to build a concrete drain to their own specification resulting in water being backed up in the last cross street.
While the residents had previously benefited from adequate drainage in the previous years, this issue has left them cleaning flooded kitchens and drying wet furniture multiple times this year.
According to the residents, before the construction of the smaller drain, the water would quickly subside after a heavy downpour and not get into the lower flats of their houses.
Furthermore, the said overseas-based resident has built his upper flat over the reserve area where the NDC once utilized to clean the back drains in the community with a machine. However, since this was done the NDC indicated that they would send workers to manually clean the drain instead of intervening but this is still to be done.
In late June, after a heavy downpour, the NDC’s Vice Chairman, Aliyah Dowridge and a senior councillor had visited the community where they inspected the concrete drain and deemed that it was not the correct size.
According to them, notices would have had to be served to the owner after which the NDC would look at taking action.
Residents that evening stood in the rain and pleaded with the local officials to start the process so as to avoid a similar situation.
However, less than three months later, the residents are grappling with the same situation and it is unclear if any effort has been made by the NDC to intervene.
Yesterday after a heavy downpour, since the issue has not been fixed, kitchens and yards were heavily flooded.
Furthermore, according to some residents, during the construction of the said drain they had reached out to senior officials at the NDC and informed them of what was transpiring and highlighted the possibilities of flooding if there was no intervention, instead the overseas resident was allowed to build however he deemed fit and nothing was done.
The residents of Canefield have been supportive of the NDC projects and have been understanding of the situation and the process, however, they say that it seems that no one is interested in actually coming up with a solution to fix the issue and the residents in the street are at the mercy of heavy downpours.
