The plight of the coastlanders when it rains

Dec 24, 2014 Letters

Dear Editor,
When I write a letter I usually want to see what are the comments are concerning it so I monitor the Stabroek News site to see what the comments on my letter were.
I wrote a letter on 20th November 2014 describing what I saw as the shortcomings of the $500 million clean-up campaign the PPP did a few weeks ago, and the end result was that on 20th November 2014 the entire city of Georgetown was flooded out.
Usually every Friday evening, I invite a group of friends to discuss topical issues over a drink. This group which includes Carl Greenidge, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, Earl John etc. would discuss issues of the day. On Friday, November 21, for the first time in four years I sat alone, since no one could come; they were all locked up in their houses unable to move because they were flooded in.
Poor Mr. Greenidge lives in one of Guyana’s most exclusive areas where the British and Canadian High Commissioners live as well as the manager of Scotia Bank— in Bel Air Gardens, and he told me he could not come out, since his yard, up to the evening of 21st November, 2014 when we spoke,was knee high in water and his long boots were not equal to the task.
So home alone I opened the conversation on the phone, I soon discovered that GT&T was probably affected by this flood since most conversations I had were riddled with poor quality reception and frequent disconnections which weres probably caused by water intrusion or high usage.
This was explainable since everyone was locked up in their homes and they are all phoning each other. Finally after nearly an hour I gave up since it was not possible to have a decent conversation with anyone due to the poor reception, in any eventmost of my friends were so annoyed at their flooded situation that I could not get them to concentrate on anything else,they were all completely focused on the poor drainage of the city and anger at the damage they had sustained not to mention being virtual prisoners in their homes
In the 21st century this is no way to live. After 22 years in office this is what the PPP has reduced us to, flood water in our streets preventing us from leaving our houses on a Friday night and also high enough to disrupt our telephone system.
And what caused this? Did we have an earthquake? A tsunami? A hurricane? A volcano? No! In 2013 I did a month by month survey of all of the flooding on the coast and all were preventable because they were all caused by neglect and poor maintenance, especially of the kokers.
On November 20, we got what was for us more than what our traditional amount of rainfall was in one day. With the PPP message still echoing in our ears that they were spending $500 million on cleaning up the city including the drainage system ,and that everything will be OK!
In the first proper rainfall storm of the December/January rainy season which started on 20th November 2014, virtually reduced Georgetown to a ghost town.Last year we heard the same thing a few days before the deluge we experienced Minister Ramsammy told the nation that we are ready for the rainy season, we were not!
This country we can and will in the future get more than six inches of rain in any one day and since our city’s drainage system is designed to remove 2.5 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, I don’t care who is in power we will flood if we get six inches in 24 hours.
Tony Vieira

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