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Taking heed of nature and acting sensibly

May 28, 2014 Editorial

Over the years, floods have come and gone; we await the next prolonged period of rainfall, to find out whether we will once again be submerged. We can continue to debate the technicalities and history of our flood relief mechanisms. We can continue to debate whether the floods are “man-made” or “natural” disasters. What we cannot debate is the extreme suffering and deprivations suffered by large sections of our population whenever these floods hit us.
To alleviate this suffering and move to ensure that it does not become an endemic feature of our national existence, have we taken heed of the lessons we have had thrust onto us over the last few decades? This is not just a matter of what the Government is, or will be, doing. Take the manner in which we build our homes – and even critics of the Government must concede that we are in the midst of a building boom in Guyana. It is one of the bright spots of the economy.
The Dutch and British, who established our coastal settlements, took heed of the fact that we are some three to four feet under sea level: they did not build any structures flat on the ground, but took pains (and these would have been literal pains in the beginning of our colony’s history) to ensure that these were at least four to five feet above the ground. Houses were always built on stilts. As late as the 1950s, when the sugar plantations built over 12,000 homes for their workers (still the largest housing drive in the Caribbean), those houses were all built on stilts.
But as we go around our Coast today, even in the face of unforgettable floods, we see so many contractors and home builders plunging their heads into the soil and building homes on what has to be “ground zero” for us. After the first “great flood” in 2005, we heard that the authorities were going to promulgate new regulations for the minimum height of structures above the ground. Later we heard a recommendation of five feet – then silence took over. But what about the responsibility of ordinary citizens for alleviating their own suffering and ensuring their own survival? How can we contemplate the degradation, disease and despair caused by water lapping over the furniture of our ground floors, and yet persist in placing our houses three feet below sea level? The point we are making is that one would have to assume that every citizen at least has a responsibility for his/her own survival. We must insist that our houses be constructed three feet or more above the ground.
But we cannot exculpate the Government from its own responsibility towards the safety of the public. It has to exercise its regulatory powers, promulgate and then enforce minimum heights for the bottom storeys of buildings, whether they are dwellings or institutions. We note that many of the “flat houses” still being constructed are offered by builders claiming to be sanctioned or supported by officialdom. The poor homeowner is being given an implicit stamp of approval. This will not do.
Our recent penchant for throwing up houses right smack next to the seawalls and on other Government reserves should be another area where the floods should have forced us to take heed. Whatever the actual state of our conservancies, the average citizen may be excused for being fuzzy on the details since he does not get a chance to experience them on a daily basis. But what is his excuse for not being aware of the parlous state of our seawalls? The recent sight of homes on the East and West Coast literally under the waves of the Atlantic made one question the common sense behind such decision-making.
As we proceed to build our lives let us accept that we are all literally in this together. Let us take heed of what nature has forced us to deal with and act sensibly – on the construction of our shelters at least.

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