Amid the prolonged drought, residents of Charity Back Street, Essequibo Coast woke up this morning to see about 6 inches of water lodged in the lower flats of their houses and yards.
When Stabroek News visited the area, the water had started to recede but was about five inches high.
According to the residents, this is the not the first time they were victims of the floodwaters but it is the first time that the water has risen so high.
After a call was made to Rupert Hopkinson, Regional Executive Officer of the region at around 9:00am today, he sent an emergency team from the Drainage and Irrigation Office to rectify the faulty koker that was believed to have led to the water lodging on the land.
Later in the afternoon, Hopkinson along with Samuel Sooklall, Neighbourhood Democratic Council Overseer of Charity/Urasara visited flood-affected residents.
Hopkinson told the residents that he was saddened to hear about the flooding in the area but was thankful that he was contacted although it was a national holiday.
“We are going to seek to raise the level of the dam and will look into the construction of a proper koker which will ease the problem. I was told that the issue was reported before and maintenance works were done. However we will seek to add the construction of a new and proper koker into the budget for the National Drainage and Irrigation for this year. We are going to use whatever monies remains as savings from the allocation which will be applied to the construction of a new koker.”
Hopkinson promised that it will be attended to this year.
“Maintenance of the koker will be done as early as next week
and we will see what can be done to prevent any serious flooding in the area. It is unfortunate that we do not have a compensation policy that provides for flood-affected victims but all this will be looked into.”
Speaking with Stabroek News, Joyann Mattis, a resident of the area said that she believes that if the koker isn’t fixed the flooding will continue.
“This morning when I came out of my bed I saw the water. This is the first time the water came in our houses and this is because of the koker. If the koker isn’t fixed then this will continue to happen because it has already been happening for years. I couldn’t get to raise my fridge or anything this morning and the water was touching it so I don’t know if it will work back. We also have a typewriter that got damaged and the lighting plan was covered with water. We were all sleeping so there is no idea when the water started to raise so we were not able to raise our appliances before the water came. ”
Another resident, Betty Benn said that she too woke up to see water lodged in the bottom flat of her home.
“We had no torrential rainfall over the course of Thursday night so it was a surprise to wake up to water in our homes. A few months ago we had a problem with the same koker and our yards were flooded but this is worse. The koker needs to be rectified soon or else we will all suffer enormous losses. If the koker isn’t looked after, as soon as there is high tides we will continue to be the victims of flooding. This koker controls the flow of water in this Backstreet area and urgent attention should be given to it.
Even though the water has receded, we still have fear that another high tide will cause the water to flow over the dam and into our homes.”
Other flood-affected residents shared their concerns with Hopkinson who walked around the area and visited the site of the koker.
