Pump attendants suspended due to neglect of duty – says M&CC Town Clerk

Dec 29, 2016 News

At the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown’s final statutory meeting for 2016, Town Clerk, Royston King said that during the period that Georgetown would have experienced heavy rainfall on Friday which led to flooding, two pump attendants who were neglectful at their stations were suspended.

“The reason being we couldn’t compromise the integrity of this already fragile drainage system of the city.”

King further stated that they will be spending the first half of 2017 on training, developing human competencies and their technological capabilities.

City Engineer, Colvern Venture said that with regard to the drainage system in Georgetown, on December 20 last, there was a major disruption at the Kitty Seawall Pump Station, in which there was a section of the road on the seawall that caved in, and this as a result of a collapsed culvert. According to Venture, the culvert had maybe collapsed a long time ago and caused some amount of undermining which resulted in the caving in.

However, with the assistance of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, the Engineer’s Department was quickly able to respond to that situation, which was brought under control for the rainy period so that water could have been discharged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The City engineer said that three inches of rainfall were recorded on December 23, which resulted in flooding in many areas in the city. The Council along with other ministries would have also quickly responded to this issue, in terms of having officials going around ensuring that clearances were made where necessary, and that the pumps were up and running efficiently.

Though two pumps were down at Lamaha Street and Riverview Ruimveldt at the time of the flood, the flood waters still receded within 24 hours. Currently these two pumps are being looked at, and they should be up and running today, this is according to Venture.

As a result of leaks of hydraulic oil, the Princes Street pump also went down over the Christmas weekend, Venture said. This, he said, could have been because of garbage getting into the pump and causing restriction of the impeller.

The City Engineer related that over the weekend they had to break a road in the North-East La Penitence area as there were persons who were still under flood water. Those persons would have spent the Christmas under water if this had not been done.

“We are monitoring the drainage in every area, because whenever there are heavy rains you always have clogs or blockages that cause flooding,” Venture said.

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