On Monday and again on Tuesday above normal high tides with ferocious surfing waves, lashed the Guyana coast causing some amount of destruction. A warning had been issued to residents in low lying areas for them to take precautions during the period of the high tide, which ends tomorrow, with another high tide period starting on March 23 and ending on March 31. No doubt, persons in areas likely to be affected did what they could, why wouldn’t they?
This time around, wave action was not along the East Coast, where it had been in January this year. On Monday, waves crested the seawall at Ocean View, Uitvlugt, West Coast Demerara, where, it appears, it was completely unexpected and caused some amount of damage. Several residents of the area had water in their homes and businesses and hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses were reported. More long-term loss will follow when kitchen gardens and other decorative plants die as a result of being steeped in salt water.
On Tuesday afternoon, the unrelenting waves wrought by another high tide slammed into a wooden koker door in Kingston, Georgetown, damaged it, immediately flooding sections of Kingston and other parts of the city. Here again damage was caused to homes and businesses including some state-owned entities, by the inundation.
Everyone living or operating a business in a vulnerable area is now most likely apprehensively looking to see where the high waves will hit next as there is bound to be flooding wherever this occurs. And this is not just because coastal Guyana is below sea level—as low as eight feet in some cases—but also, and to a greater extent, because the drainage system is compromised.
A drainage/sluice network constructed in colonial times still exists today. But it has become porous through neglect and is therefore more susceptible to tidal action. The harm that has been/continues to be done is obvious – just take a look into the closest drain, trench or canal and you will see. Styrofoam and plastics float on top, while weeds and thick muck clog the bottom. The effects of climate change on the environment, which are most certainly being experienced here, have served to make matters worse.
Word on the street is that the structure in Kingston has been neglected and was in dire need of maintenance, just like the rest of the city. According to Minister of Transport and Hydraulics Robeson Benn, the koker is the responsibility of the City Council. “It is the City Council’s koker and [the City Council] would have to answer the question of how long it would take to repair the door,” he said on Tuesday evening.
Notice that even at the height of a crisis, opportunities abound for politicking and finger pointing and the minister does not miss a beat, though he knows, just as well as the rest of us, that the City Council has no money. It is struggling and failing to maintain effective garbage collection, so where will it find the funds to repair the koker?
The truth of the matter is however, that it is our koker, it belongs to Georgetown; to Guyana; to Guyanese. If it fails, it does not just affect City Councillors, or Minister Benn, or Mayor Hamilton Green—who without a doubt is the fly in this ointment—but all of us; Georgetown residents and business people who stand to lose everything and all Guyanese who could very well be looking to name a new capital city.
Try as we might, we cannot divine what the sea will do next but we can work with what we already know. We know that the majority of our population resides on this low coastal plain that is below sea level. We know that sturdy sea defences, effective kokers/sluices and clean, clear drains will help to alleviate what the sea tosses at us. Why is it so difficult to just get this done?
