Mayor: Capacity Issues Impacting Mobay Drains

With more rains projected well into next week, concerns have once again surfaced about how Montego Bay, St. James will be impacted. The recent heavy rain caused major flooding in sections of the second city, which resulted in at least one death and major damage to properties. It’s led to major critique of the town’s drainage system and pile up of garbage.

Claims are being refuted by Acting Mayor Richard Vernon. When sections of Montego Bay, St. James namely West Gate, Fairview, St. Claver Avenue and Creek Street experienced flooding after prolonged rain fall it sparked worry.  President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, Janet Silvera, shares this concern.

That’s because the municipal cooperation does ongoing work to clean its drains according to Acting Mayor Richard Vernon.  He says the drains were clean two weeks before Tuesday’s downpour which resulted in the water subsiding in around ten minutes.  He says the issue is drain capacity.

However, not all areas in the city are adopted by the municipality like Fairvew which is privately owned. This means drain cleaning is the responsibility of the developers.’ one video in circulation shows a car nearly submerged in the area. The acting mayor fears that could’ve resulted from a lack of drain cleaning.

The municipality’s assessing the damage done in sections of the city.

Reporter: Jhanielle Powell