Andrea Downer, Gleaner Writer
In this November 19 photograph, Ian Ingram points to the rocks on which he and 99 other people slept for eight hours after they were trapped in the Bog Walk gorge by rising waters from the Rio Cobre,Jamaica. - JUNIOR DOWIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
ON TUESDAY, November 15, 2005, Ian Ingram slept on the banks of the Rio Cobre, Jamaica. Well, he didn't really sleep; it would have been impossible to sleep while standing and jostling for space with about 99 other persons. But between the hours of 6:30 pm on Tuesday and 2:20 the following morning, Ian and the small crowd took turns watching the angry river swell. Praying that it wouldn't sweep them into its watery depths, they took turns measuring the depth of the water with sticks, scrambling further into the bushes as the water advanced on them.
They were travelling from Kingston and Spanish Town after 6:00 pm, when the river overflowed its banks and covered the road in two sections. They were unable to continue towards Linstead, or go back to Spanish Town.
Ian said it was the longest night of his life.
"It was very stressing to be up all night watching danger," he said.
TWILIGHT ZONE
Ian and the others were isolated in their twilight zone, until his brother, Kemar, called him shortly after 7:30 pm. Ian asked him to get help. Spurred by the fear in his brother's voice, Kemar called the media.
"When I heard that it was more than 80 people trapped in there and they said the water was rising, I knew they were in danger," Kemar told The Gleaner.
The National Works Agency (NWA) and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) called Ian and promised to send help.
Earlier, the strong current had slammed a car into a wall that separates the road from a plunge of about 20 feet into the riverbed below. Another car, which had been abandoned when it stalled in the water, was swept away by the raging waters. Convinced of the river's deadly force, Ian and the others settled down to wait.
They were all huddled on a hillside punctuated by craggy rocks. They sat on the cold ground or on rocks, and settled down to wait.
Ian had been told that a Jamaica Defence Force helicopter would be sent to airlift them out of the gorge.
The helicopter arrived about 10:00 p.m. Ian said it flew over them twice, then left. The crew had decided that it was unsafe to airlift them out of the gorge.
They resigned themselves to spending the rest of the night beside the river.
BONE-WEARY AND COLD
At 2:00 a.m, when the water had receded enough for them to walk through it, Ian and a few persons trudged through the waist-high water and started the long trek home. They were soaked to the skin, bone-weary and bitterly cold.
Ian has to travel through the gorge at least twice each day to get to work and back home in Bog Walk. It is a journey he says he now dreads.
"Mi just a hurry up the driver fi get through the gorge quickly, because no rain no haffi fall a Bog Walk or Linstead for the river to flood," he explained with fear in his voice.
He says a safer alternative route should be built and the gorge used for guided tours. The drive along the gorge is a scenic route, offering glimpses of the Rio Cobre, sometimes deceptively calm and at other times chattering companionably, as it winds its way to the sea.
But now, when Ian and at least 99 other people travel along that road, they are once again caught in the grips of a nightmare, reliving the night when they spent eight hours trying to prevent the hungry river from swallowing them alive.
