Storm bills mount

As Jamaica prepares to enter what is traditionally one of the busiest and most destructive phases of the Atlantic hurricane season, the Holness administration is grappling with a new preliminary flood damage bill from Tropical Storm Ida eclipsing $170 million.

That costing includes the pounding sustained by the road network more than a week ago, but it is unclear whether that estimate covers the withering effect of Ida on the island’s farms.

The mounting calculation means that three tropical storms – Elsa, Grace, and Ida – have rung up total damage of at least $1.15 billion in two months, but that figure could climb as technocrats assess the cost of massive landslides like the one along the Newcastle-Hardwar Gap main road, close to the border of Portland and St Andrew.

The slippage is threatening Jamaica’s already fragile ecotourism industry on the eastern fringes of the island, and hundreds of residents in at least four communities have also been directly impacted.

People living in the adjoining communities of Cascade, Green Hill, Holywell, and Section have been forced to take the long and daunting journey through the Buff Bay Valley into Kingston and St Andrew.

The slippage is believed to have happened on August 30, four days after the country was drenched in Ida’s wrath.

Councillor for the Balcarres division, Rohan Vassell, told The Gleaner on Sunday via telephone that although the massive land slippage did not take place on the Portland side, dozens of tourists and other visitors have been affected.

“This is really big, and it will take a lot of work to clear that area and restore it to a drivable condition,” said Vassell.

“The Blue Mountain Bicycle Tours is affected as tourists cannot enter from that end, which is an easier route when coming in from Kingston or St Andrew. So instead, the operators of that attraction, who would probably (normally) travel through Newcastle, now have to journey through Junction in St Mary into the town of Buff Bay and then up to the Buff Bay Valley.”

Adrian Williams, who spoke to The Gleaner via telephone, argued that longer journeys are causing them to dig deeper into their pockets to buy fuel.

“For us to drive from either community to get to the town of Buff Bay will take us anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour. And then we have to journey to St Mary, then to St Andrew, and into Kingston,” Williams said.

“So what would normally take 30 to 35 minutes to get from those communities into Papine in St Andrew will now take us approximately three hours travelling all the way back down to Buff Bay as a result of the collapsed roadway.”

A worker operating a backhoe was like a speck under the towering shadow of the mammoth landslide. He said that the backhoe had sustained damage owing to the magnitude of the boulders that have had to be cleared.

He believes that the job would have been more manageable if another excavator were in operation.

“Not even lunch me nuh eat because me wah the road clear,” the operator said on Sunday, adding that he had been working tirelessly for the last three days.

Meanwhile, a cycling group dubbed the ‘101 Riders’ was halted in its tracks by the slippage on Sunday.

Keith Adams, one of the cyclists living in the Gordon Town area, said the group rides through the mountainous area a few times a year but will have to resort to using other paths to get to trails in Cascade Valley and Buff Bay.

Stephen Shaw, communications manager for the National Works Agency, said the vast nature of the landslide made it difficult to estimate a timeline on when the blockage would be cleared.

“We’ve been working ... but it’s not something that will be opened in a day or two,” he said.

editorial@gleanerjm.com