By Tyrone Reid, Staff ReporterWITH THE hurricane season starting tomorrow, June 1, the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation is to begin a $10-million drain-cleaning drive throughout the Corporate Area this week.
"The council, starting the end of this month, will be spending $10 million on drain cleaning in about 28 divisions across the Corporate Area," Mayor Desmond McKenzie told The Gleaner at his parlour last week.
The Mayor said the flood-prone areas had already been identified and the project was poised to get under way after the remaining loose ends are knotted. "We are now just fine-tuning the list because we know the hot areas when it rains and we will be concentrating on these areas. We did (the same thing) last year when we took control of the council and we had some relative success," he said.
HOPING FOR SUCCESS
Mayor McKenzie is hoping that the drive will repeat last year's success. "We had minimal flooding in those flood-prone areas last year, hopefully we will have similar results this time around but based on the amount of rainfall we have experienced in the last few weeks I hope that it will not continue... because if we have this continually for six weeks into two months I don't know what is going to happen (because) the city is in a bad way in terms of our drainage."
Already, the Mayor said, he had visited more than a dozen sites in the Corporate Area that had been flooded out. "Within the last two weeks I have had to visit some 14 homes and businesses that were flooded out because the gullies overflowed their banks and a lot of the drains are so small."
Mayor McKenzie regards the $10-million project as just treatment for the drainage condition and not necessarily a cure, as he says that some of the drains need advanced technical repairs.
EXPANDING DRAINS
"A lot of the drains that we have are not adequate to deal with the amount of water that is running on our roadways. I think we need to first of all examine many of the drains we have in the Corporate Area and see if it is possible to expand some of these drains," Mayor McKenzie said.
"Take for example Marcus Garvey Drive. When it drizzles Marcus Garvey Drive becomes impassable." Other affected areas highlighted by the Mayor were Hagley Park Road, Maxfield Avenue and sections of Harbour View.
