Peter Espeut | Doing the little we can

Last Wednesday, the same happy crew as last week (with two additions) journeyed to the west with relief supplies for some of those affected by the winds and rain of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa. This time we went to the badly affected community of Maggotty in St Elizabeth, on the banks of the upper Black River.

This time, the journey only took four hours (as opposed to eight hours last week from Kingston to Seaford Town, Westmoreland); we did not have to compete for road space with a relief convoy which hogged the road. We travelled through central Jamaica past Mandeville, down Spur Tree Hill, bypassed Santa Cruz, crossed the Black River, and turned right at Lacovia Tombstone. (I don’t know why some refer to that route as being “the South Coast Road”; we are not near the sea at all!)

We did not see the same widespread devastation as last week; the eye made landfall much to the west of where we went. It was only as we followed the Black River upstream to Maggotty that we saw the trees stripped of their leaves, and numerous splintered and downed utility poles. I believe Maggotty was on the edge of the area with the heavy devastation; by all accounts, had we gone west past Lacovia to the Holland Bamboo Avenue, Middle Quarters, and beyond, I think we would have encountered more severe hurricane damage.

But what we saw was a lot of ground-water – flooding. Water in the Black River Upper Morass (remember BRUMDEC?) had risen, swollen by many inches of rainfall; clearly the aquifers were fully charged! It looked like the road from Santa Cruz into the Morass to New River was impassable, and as we travelled towards Lacovia we saw a huge lake on the right (north), and some covered homes and vehicles. (The Spaniards had called it Lago-via – the way by the lake; I can see why!).

NARROWEST

The Black River is at its narrowest at Lacovia; that is why it is bridged there; but usually it is hard to see the river, as its banks are thickly covered with vegetation. But last Wednesday it was easily visible as a fast-flowing watercourse, as all the water flowing from the Upper Morass is forced through the narrow channel before it spreads out into the huge Lower Morass – Jamaica’s largest wetland. Thus we see the energy that is captured and converted into 13.2 megawatts of electricity in the two hydroelectric plants along the rivercourse near Maggotty (the river used to have 29 cascades before the power plants were built in 1959 and 2014).

Again, usually it is difficult to see the Catholic Church in Maggotty from the main road as it is clothed in vegetation, but Wednesday she was clearly visible in all her nakedness, thankfully relatively intact. However the rectory, training centre, clinic and sausage factory were not so lucky; roofs were damaged, and computers and other equipment and supplies (including medicines) were spoiled.

Trucks from Food for the Poor and CARITAS International – the Roman Catholic Relief Agency – had got there before us, and an orderly crowd of hundreds were being attended to. We were told that much larger crowds had been served on Monday and Tuesday. The relatively few cases of food and water we had brought in our vehicle were still appreciated.

We saw food, water, and tarpaulins being freely distributed, and people leaving on foot under some weight. We were able to greet and hug many friends from the Diocese of Mandeville (under whose jurisdiction Maggotty falls) involved in the distribution.

WELL-ORGANISED

As we were leaving, donations of medicines were just arriving to restock the clinic. It was a well-organised and coordinated effort. The parish priest and sisters from Poland who serve there (and I can testify that they manufacture and market excellent Polish sausage to support the mission) are to be congratulated.

I had the opportunity to have a chat with the principal of the Maggotty High School. He was ebullient, and looking forward to re-opening using the resources he had. I accepted his kind invitation to – soon and very soon he says – return to speak to his sixth formers on environmental matters.

Several residents – none of whom I had met before – buttonholed me to say they read my columns, and that if only there were better environmental practices, the devastation would not have been so severe. I agree!

Needless to say, there was no electricity anywhere around, despite the hydro-plants. One would have thought that it would have been a priority to restore the transmission lines radiating out from the source of so much power. No doubt the light and power company has done its assessment, but implementation seems very slow.

I also saw the “Samaritan’s Purse International Disaster Relief” organisation at work, pumping water from the Black River and purifying it (impressive looking equipment), filling containers with potable water on the roadside; a sign advertised “free drinking water”.

Thank God for good friends!

If it really wants to help, the government needs to invest in some of that kind of equipment.

The many people I spoke with were up-beat – no long faces or victim mentality. They will rebuild, they say, and recover; all they need is a little emergency help. The school will reopen, and the sausage factory and the computer lab will be rebuilt. This is what resilience is all about: not waiting for the government boops to do everything. Sitting on one’s hands waiting on the government is the old dependency syndrome. Our people are maturing.

Peter Espeut is an environmentalist and a development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com