Summer school hopes dashed for Bog Walk children

Latoya Hedge was teary-eyed as she recalled the ill effects of Tropical Storm Elsa, which drenched dozens of her children’s books and left her lamenting thousands of dollars of damage.

The 32-year-old mother of three took time out to reveal how rains associated with the storm suddenly transformed her yard into a river course that flooded her house and everything in its path.

“Lawd, Jesus! Right now, none of the pickney dem can’t go a school, as all them books destroyed by the water,” Hedge said, adding that the disaster put paid to her plans to send them to summer school.

Sunday wasn’t the first time that water had breached her premises but the volume, she said, was worse than ever before.

Elevating her bed on concrete blocks could not keep it out of the clutches of the floodwaters, which also soaked her clothes.

Residents like Petrona March believe that storm-water drains in the community are inadequate to properly channel run-off into the Cow Gully and other areas after heavy rainfall.

Meanwhile, Camellia Jackson said that she was preparing a meal when the raging water struck her door.

“Is mi food mi a cook when mi see di water start a come inside the kitchen, so mi come inside and water was inside, so when mi take up mi dresser, di clothes start fall out. All now I frighten,” Jackson said.

The Bog Walk Church of God of Prophecy was not spared the wrath of Elsa and was flooded, too.

Jackson has been a member there for about 30 years and said Sunday’s breach was about the 10th time that the church has been flooded.

“We can’t have no church as the water turn over everything inside. I hope that by next week, it can clean up and church can start again,” Daphne Mitchell said.

Councillor Peter Abraham of the Bog Walk division empathised with the residents’ plight and pledged to lobby for intervention.