After the flood, Westgreen battles mud

As he trudged through thick mud covering the roadway outside his home in Westgreen, Montego Bay, 77-year-old John Lee paused to scratch his face. The retired firefighter, his boots caked with muck, expressed deep concern about the worsening health conditions in his community following Hurricane Melissa.

“Mud and everything – that’s what we’re living in now,” he said wearily. “Mi face a scratch mi, y’know, ‘cause mi haffi up and dung inna di mud.”

Lee’s home, like many others in the wider Catherine Hall area, was flooded when the powerful Category Five storm struck Jamaica on October 28, unleashing torrential rains and winds of 185 miles per hour. Though the floodwaters of up to 12 feet in some instances have since receded, they left behind a thick layer of mud coating the streets, driveways, and homes – a brown crust of debris clinging to furniture and cars left outside to dry.

Residents now move about in rubber boots, some shovelling sludge from their doorways, others packing what they can to leave. The smell is suffocating.

“I can’t sleep around here because of the stench in the night-time,” said community member Nicolee Wynter. “And when the sun is beaming on the water and on the mud, the stench rises, it’s a very bad stench. Mostly rats and cats are in the water, and dogs – dead dogs!”

What troubles residents most is that the mud is contaminated. Faecal matter from overflowing sewage has mixed into it, turning the sludge into a potential breeding ground for disease.

“Right now, people ‘round here start scratch them skin. Disease start come out likkle by likkle,” Wynter said, adding that frequent use of disinfectant has likely spared him from the same fate. Still, he believes not enough is being done to make cleaning and sanitation supplies available.

According to him, voluntary groups bring food and sometimes water, but community members, up to Wednesday of last week, have not seen any representative from a government agency.

“As a voter, we need help. We did support, and we did vote. We are law-abiding citizens.”

A short distance away, Marilyn Hines, 53, swept muddy water from the lower floor of her two-storey home. Since the storm, her upper level has become a refuge for neighbours whose single-storey houses were swallowed by floodwaters.

It was there that many fled, racing ahead of the floodwaters that swallowed their smaller houses during the Category Five storm, and days later, some still remain.

Hines, a civil servant, has been sharing what little disinfectant she has with others complaining of rashes and skin infections caused by the unsanitary conditions.

“A lot of persons say they have ringworm. They even come back to me because my mother is a nurse, so we even assist them with hydrogen peroxide and stuff like that, fungus spraying and stuff,” she said.

The few times water was trucked to the community, she tries to purify it by adding bleach, and spares some of the bottled water received from volunteers to wash her face.

But noting that water is scarce, the civil servant declared that the current state of their environment is a “health risk from every angle”.

HEALTH EXPERTS

SOUND ALARM

Public health officials are echoing those fears.

Last week, Shereika Whitelocke-Ballingsingh, public health inspector and head of the Caribbean Poison Information Network, warned of a potential public health crisis in the hurricane’s aftermath, citing the increased risk of water- and vector-borne diseases.

Michael Williams, director of environmental health in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, told The Sunday Gleaner that Hurricane Melissa has created multiple environmental hazards that could trigger outbreaks of diseases linked to poor sanitation, unsafe water, and mosquito breeding.

“It is anticipated that if we don’t carry out the necessary intervention now, then we can have a rise in those,” he said, listing illnesses like leptospirosis, dengue fever, and chikungunya as possibilities.

He revealed that the ministry has already observed an uptick in cases of gastroenteritis, caused by people consuming contaminated food or water.

To address the threat, public advisories have been issued urging citizens to boil water or use bleach to purify it. The Ministry is also collaborating with other agencies, including the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, to set up water stations, portable toilets, and distribute chlorine tablets to disinfect water and prevent waterborne diseases.

Williams said a field hospital was established in Black River, St Elizabeth, last Wednesday to treat storm-related illnesses, with plans to open additional units at Falmouth Hospital in Trelawny and Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland – two parishes also hit hard by Hurricane Melissa. A third is to be opened at Cornwall Regional Hospital.

“We are moving quickly to have these conditions dealt with,” he said. “Public health inspectors, we are out there visiting food establishments ... to ensure spoiled food isn’t entering the food chain and that the public isn’t facing any undue risk. We visit large farms to ensure proper burial of dead animals. We visit large warehouses and retailers to ensure that there’s safe food and water to be provided to the public.”

The ministry’s work, he added, includes vector control, public health education, and environmental monitoring to reduce the risk of outbreaks.

CLEANING UP

Meanwhile, efforts to clean up the worst-hit areas of Montego Bay have begun. Mayor Richard Vernon told The Sunday Gleaner that work to clear mud and debris from the roads in Westgreen and Catherine Hall started last Tuesday.

“That day, we brought in 15 tipper trucks, backhoes, three front-end loaders, a skid steer, and one tow truck from a wrecking service,” Vernon said. “We also had the Jamaica Fire Brigade washing some homes that were accessible by fire truck.”

Water trucks were also deployed to supply residents with potable water.

The mayor noted that this was the first time flooding of such magnitude had hit those communities, submerging houses and leaving behind piles of silt, garbage, and debris. Some of the waste, he said, came from construction excavation for the new perimeter road project.

“Piles of garbage, piles of debris – that cannot be removed in one or two days,” Vernon explained. “We launched the cleanup to do the heavy moving over two straight days.”

He said some of the equipment has since been redeployed to other parts of St James, but machinery remains in the community to continue clearing work.

Expressing empathy for residents, Vernon said he plans to launch a “complete washdown” of the affected areas once the water supply is fully restored.

“I believe by that time, we should have water supply back in that community, so they too can do the proper washing of their homes, their veranda, their yard space, you name it,” he said.

For now, the residents of Westgreen and Catherine Hall remain surrounded by mud, debris, and uncertainty. The smell of decay lingers, and fears of disease grow stronger by the day.

Standing in his yard, John Lee looked down at his boots, the mud clinging thickly to the soles.

“We just want to live healthy again,” he said. “We not asking for much – just for the place to clean up and for the people to get help before sickness take over.”

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com