JAMAICA RAVAGED BY TROPICAL STORM GUSTAV

Flooding in Windsor Road, Spanish Town.

Jamaica suffered immense damage following the passage of Tropical Storm Gustav on Thursday and Friday, August 28 and 29 respectively.

The storm was responsible for blowing off roofs, downing trees, flooding homes and wrecking roads all over the island. Electricity and water supplies were also dislocated during the passage of the storm. The parishes of Portland, St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Catherine and sections of St. Andrew seem to have taken the brunt of the battering.

Damaged section of Bog Walk Gorge

In Portland, the roadway along the Long Bay main road which leads into Manchioneal was left impassable by sand, fallen tree limbs and other debris. Other areas in the parish that were cut off included Cascade, Regale and surrounding locales. The Buff Bay Valley also took quite a bit of ravaging. In St. Thomas, clearing of ten major roadways which were blocked due to landslide and flooding was scheduled to also take place. Some of the other badly damaged areas in this eastern parish included Spring Bank, Bachelor Hall, Hagley Gap and Penline and Beach Gate in Nine Miles. The Jacks Hill Road in North East St. Andrew was also blocked by a landslide. Other areas were several of those in the vicinity of Industry Village. Skyline Drive, one of Gordon Town’s main arteries to Kingston was also blocked, so too the path from Industry Village to Gordon Town. Out in St. Ann, the Fern Gully road which links St. Ann to St. Catherine and the north coast was also blocked by debris. The Newcastle Main road was also affected and was closed as a result.

Hope River Bridge in Harbour View split in two.

In St. Mary roads in Broadgate and its environs suffered terribly from the storm. Castleton also had its fair share of damage. It was a similar story of woe in New Haven St. Andrew where just about all the streets were flooded with water from raging streams. This caused several houses to be flooded. In St. Catherine, areas such as Old Harbour Bay, Nightingale Grove, Bushy Park, Big Pond in Bannister and sections of Portmore all had flooding problems.

Perhaps the two most powerful reminders of the passage of the storm was the wreckage of the Bog Walk Gorge in St. Catherine and the splitting in two of the Harbour View Bridge which spans the Hope River in St. Andrew. Water which rose well above 11 feet in the Rio Cobre destroyed several sections of the Gorge and has left it closed for an undetermined time span. Sections of Flat Bridge were also damaged as a result of the action of flood waters associated with Tropical Storm Gustav.

Residents in the eastern section of the island have been marooned from the Corporate Area as the link between the two areas, the Hope River Bridge ( Harbour View Bridge) gave way under the pressure of the raging waters and split in two, courtesy of Tropical Storm Gustav. There was no alternative route as the road in Dallas which has been so used in the past, was also impassable.

Junction in St. Mary, the Westmoreland Bridge also in St. Mary and the Sandy and McGregor Gullies also suffered extensive damage.