What started as Tropical Depression #16, early Monday morning, developed into Tropical Storm Nicole, yesterday morning, bringing in all, four (4) days of persistent, heavy rain to Jamaica.
This was accompanied by thunderstorms and strong, gusty winds of between 25-30 mph, from Tuesday into Wednesday night.
As a result, 6 people have been confirmed dead, 15 are missing.
6 persons in a 2-storey house are presumed dead, after their house, built on a gully-bank, tumbled into the gully...one of the confirmed dead was a teenager who lived in that household.
Those living on gully-banks have insisted that they have nowhere else to put up their houses, but it's a dangerous practice as demonstrated by what happened to the household above.
[Unfortunately Jamaican politicians have encouraged this practice, by not mandating that these people find other places to live. (Gully-bank voters bring in a lot of votes in some constituencies)].
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However, while it's raining outside, many Jamaicans have no water, as many pipes and other structures responsible for feeding water into households and business places, have been damaged by flooding and accompanying debris.
Approximately 175,000 (175K) people have had no electricity since Tuesday...much to the annoyance of the affected Jamaicans.
However, the Jamaica Public Service (JPS - the monopoly provider of electricity on island), were able to bring electricity to 70K of affected homes. There are still 100K Jamaicans without light, however.
Winsome Callum, Head of Corporate Communications at JPS, has promised that electricity should return to most affected homes by tonight.
(JPS systems are automatically shut down when damage occurs to transmission lines, as a result of heavy winds, flooding and downed trees on JPS wires.
Parts of the grid are shut down to prevent live electricity from being transmitted in the downed wires).
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The ford at Harbour View, that connects the parishes of St. Andrew and St. Thomas, washed away yesterday, preventing people from getting from one parish to the other.
(A huge river - the Hope River, separates the two parishes).
Today, a few innovative Jamaican men allowed pedestrians to cross over by using a thick rope that connected both sides...
...They did this for a fee or course, ranging from JMD $500 to $2,500(US $5.7-$28.8), depending on the load being carried across.
(There was a Bailey bridge constructed last year to connect both parishes, but this was dismantelled in order to begin work on building a 4-lane bridge that connects both parishes.
According to Minister of Transportation and Works, Mike Henry, this new bridge is slated for completion in 18 months' time.
The contractors - Care Construction, should be putting up a temporary bridge that should open tomorrow, to allow pedestrian passage across.
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Schools closed their doors yesterday and today, in order to protect children from being trapped on roads that are impassable and to facilitate the use of some schools as temporary shelters for those dislocated by the heavy rains.
Most businesses closed their doors too, at around 12:00/1:00p.m., yesterday and a few did so today, due to concern for employees being marooned and not being able to get to and/or from work.
Jamaica is due for more rain and unfortunately more damage, as there will be a tropical wave passing near the island tomorrow...which is expected to bring more rain until Sunday.
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Heaven knows why we don't learn from the lessons of our past and ensure that our infrastructure is properly maintained.
But this is Jamaica...the land where governments aren't held accountable for anything...until we as Jamaicans suffer a little inconvenience, complain and then forget about the root problems, when the inconvenience is temporarily relieved.
Ah the life of the Jamaican politician...don't they just love us Jamaicans?..they can sweet-talk us, to shut us up, when we complain...
For they know that we love the sweet-talking.
They know that we love people who pretend to perform, who give us a lot of "puff and fluff" and no substance.
They pretend that they're actually serving us, when they're actually doing us a dis-service by continuing to spend money on symptoms of problems, rather than root-causes of these problems.
Ah the life of a Jamaican...
We take life too easy...no problem man...the politician goes into office...lives big off of us, while we suffer and complain...
But no problem, man...my man is in charge now...I can get a little curry goat and belch and feel good...
While he eats curry goat 'til it runs his belly and flies to the USA, to get treatment on insurance paid by us...
No wonder we continue to be in this condition...
When will we wake up?
[I would like to the thank NASA Goddard Photo and Video for the use of their Flickr inset photo of Tropical Storm Nicole, taken yesterday. (It's represented as the circular and semi-circular white masses of cloud cover in the picture).
Nicole's range was over 345 miles. Jamaica is at the bottom-middle of the photograph, completely hidden by cloud cover, to the South-East of Cuba].
Gillian
Sources Include
1) Power 106 FM, September 27-30, 2010
2) Radio Jamaica, September 26-30,2010,
3) Television Jamaica, September 26-27, and 30, 2010
4) CVM Television, September 26-27, and 30, 2010
5) Nationwide Radio, September 26-29, 2010
