This past week in Demerara, at the height of the thunderous rainstorm that produced widespread flooding, an East Coast resident was in a quandary. With the tide high, the seawall koker closed, and the level in the drainage trench behind his property rising, the floodwater in his yard was inching closer and closer to the floor level in the house. With the whole area under water, pumping was out of the question, so Mr Resident had begun contemplating methods of raising furniture should the water encroach. Four hours later, as the koker reopened, the water gradually drained out of the yard, leaving no damage, but it had been an anxious time. We often look back on such scenarios later and find humour in relating them, but at the time the feeling of helplessness is not remotely funny. It’s a time when we are caught, as the North Americans euphemistically put it, “in the deep brown stuff,” and our prospects are daunting bleak.
Knowing about the flooding story, I was reminded of a plight of mine, going back a few decades, that involved a late night trip to the then Atkinson Field, now Timehri, in a Hillman Minx vehicle owned by the Shell Oil manager at the time, Rudolph DeBruin. Rudy, a very affable Trini, was giving four of us a ride back to “the Base”, as it was known, and we were sailing merrily along, probably halfway home, when we suddenly developed a flat tyre. We piled out of the Minx only to be informed, very casually by Rudy, that he had a spare tyre but no jack. So we wait for a passing motorist to help us out, right? Wrong. I’m talking here the 1950s and as Rudy casually told us, “Look padna, at 2 o’clock in the morning, the traffic on this road going our way is almost zero, oui. Even if another car comes along, the odds are his jack won’t fit. We’ll probably have to wait here until daybreak to get help, and in the meantime the mosquitoes will eat us alive. We have to lift up the vehicle, swap the good tyre, and away we go.” I thought it was impossible, but nobody argued – we were facing the deep brown stuff here. I was the youngest and skinniest of the bunch, but the four of us somehow lifted the back, DeBruin slipped off the flat, we put the car down gently, he lined up the spare, we lifted again, and the job was done. The tag to this tale is that the next day at Atkinson, as people doubted our story, we tried to lift the Minx again, but no longer facing the daunting prospect of a night on the East Bank road, we couldn’t do it. Anxiety brings you strength.
An Arian Browne photo of the front wheel of a truck stuck in a drain on Robb Street, reminded me of a more recent adventure when a few months back in town I drove onto what I thought was grass on a parapet but was
