Showers causing Islandwide landslides

One man affected by the weekend rains has charged that his neighbourhood has been neglected.

David Pierre, a bus conductor of Old Buff, Lowmans Hill, whose home was one affected by debris, charged that area representative, Minister Rene Baptiste of neglecting the area.{{more}}

“The Minister aint care about up this side. Every time they come and stop at the junction, or higher up,” Pierre said.

However, Baptiste, area representative after the March 28 general elections, dismissed the suggestion that she is neglecting the area. Baptiste was rather fired up when approached at the House of Assembly last Wednesday. She returned from an overseas mission Monday, the day after the heavy saturated West Kingstown and other parts of the State.

“How you could tell me I neglect an area and I am always there?” Baptiste quipped.

She blasted her opponents and mentioned the need to “educate the electorate.”

Baptiste used the opportunity to project her work not only in the constituency, but in the entire state as her role as Culture and Tourism Minister.

Baptiste boasted of her organised approach to matters in her constituency and added that she had just come from the affected area.

She outlined that the place in question “was a given to land slides.”

Pierre pointed to a spot below his residence and above an area where according to him work stopped.

“They could remedy the drain, and that could solve the problem,” Pierre pointed out.

He was not the only one affected by last weekend’s downpour.

Lindsay George a part time janitor, who has been residing in the area for 18 years, pointed to another problem. She admitted having problems with water, even in the midst of the dry season owing to the run off from several houses built above hers.

“Even when it’s dry, the drain never out of water,” George disclosed.

George thinks that an outlet is needed for the water. She said her family has complained about the situation, but was disappointed that no steps have been taken to rectify the issue.

Though things might have been normal for other persons, the water cascading into George’s residence brought with it loads of soil. It rendered her laundry room ineffective while her wash room was partially swamped.

Another occupant of that house, Julian Pierre, is not happy with a toilet perched above his lot and wants the Ministry of Health and the Environment to look at the matter.

“If the rain continuing, the people toilet will come down,” Julian said.

The plight of the residents of this neighbourhood was the cause for some stir over the weekend.

It became the subject of discussion on a radio programme Sunday when the proposed candidate for the opposition New Democratic Party Daniel Cummings in that constituency called the programme complaining about the plight of the affected residents. At the time, Disaster Preparedness Coordinator Howie Prince was fielding calls from the public on the Hitz Talk programme hosted by Max Harry. Prince promised to go to visit the area after explaining that the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) had dispatched the police to the scene earlier.

Deputy Prime Minister Louis Straker, who recently became Transport, Works and Housing Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, and Prince, visited the affected area and promised to send assistance.