Unions Estate residents dread backyard flooding

Despite having had to resort to using shovels to channel floodwaters on to the road and away from their homes, some residents of Unions Estate in St Catherine are fearful that they could still experience disaster if the National Housing Trust (NHT) does not respond to their plea.

Over the past couple of days, the residents nervously endured the rains of Tropical Depression Nine – which yesterday developed into Tropical Storm Ida – watching the murky, floodwater gushing into their backyards, leaving water-logged gardens and threatening to seep through their back doors.

They told The Gleaner that they began experiencing flooding at the Twickenham Park-based scheme last year and pointed the finger at Christel House – a year-old school operated by an international charity – and a newly constructed NHT scheme.

“We can’t wait until the water get into a house because we were told it would have been addressed,” said Alecia Bennett-Bryan, who pointed out that the issue threatens houses in Phase Three, located at the back of Unions Estate.

Videos and photos sent to our newsroom yesterday showed the rising floodwaters rushing through their backyards after entering through drainage homes in the wall separating Unions Estate from Christel House and the newly constructed scheme, a recurrence of their experience during last week’s passing of Tropical Storm Grace.

Their efforts to have a resolution over the past year have fallen flat.

With suspicion that Christel House is the main contributor to the problem, Kayon, a concerned resident, said, “They are trying to just blame it on NHT.”

She told The Gleaner that whenever heavy rain persists, she can see a large pool of water on the school’s property from a second-floor window of her home.

“They know it’s them,” she said, adding that over the course of the year, residents have been in dialogue with Christel House’s project manager, Jeremy Brown.

Kayon said that Brown acknowledged that there needs to be some levelling of land on the property so that the water can flow into the drainage.

But yesterday, Brown agreed that Christel House needed to do some grading works, said that the NHT was “more responsible” for the problem as shown by a civil engineering report commissioned by the school.

With the soil condition of the school property being clay, Brown explained that this is the cause for the settling of water on the compound.

He added that at a meeting on Saturday, Christel House plans to have another look at what they can do to alleviate the problem.

NHT Project Manager Peter Taylor did not offer a comment when contacted yesterday.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com