The un­prece­dent­ed ex­tent of flood dam­age across a large part of the coun­try had res­i­dents from St He­le­na to La Hor­quet­ta ques­tion­ing the role and func­tion of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM).

Al­though the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice warned of in­clement weath­er days be­fore the rains be­gan on Wednes­day, res­i­dents in af­fect­ed ar­eas were left strand­ed for hours as there seemed to be a de­lay in the re­sponse from the ODPM.

Just af­ter 1 am yes­ter­day, some res­i­dents in St He­le­na were forced to climb to their rooftops to es­cape the ris­ing flood wa­ters. Neigh­bours res­cued some.

One res­i­dent, Jizzelle Bald­win, a di­a­bet­ic, post­ed on so­cial me­dia that she was strand­ed for more than 14 hours in a ve­hi­cle with four chil­dren, all un­der the age of nine.

She was even­tu­al­ly res­cued by a man with a boat who read about her plight on Face­book.

At a press con­fer­ence, yes­ter­day morn­ing, ODPM head Cap­tain Neville Wint and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young were asked about Bald­win.

They said they looked for her while tour­ing flood­ed ar­eas in a he­li­copter. Young said they tried call­ing her num­ber but could not lo­cate her.

In­stead of wait­ing for the ODPM, peo­ple across the coun­try have been post­ing their flood­ing sit­u­a­tions on so­cial me­dia seek­ing help for trapped se­niors, el­der­ly and chil­dren. (See Page A10)

In Green­vale, La Hor­quet­ta, res­i­dents de­scribed hav­ing to climb on re­frig­er­a­tors to avoid flood wa­ters, then push­ing through ceil­ing tiles to keep their heads above the flood wa­ters.

Neigh­bours in St He­le­na helped each oth­er be­cause they felt wait­ing for help did not make sense.

“I have nev­er seen it this bad in all my 40 years liv­ing here,” Kun­daye Maraj said.

“Where is the ODPM? Where is any­body? Like the Gov­ern­ment gone silent on we here.”

This is not the first time the ODPM has come un­der fire for its lack of pre­pared­ness.

In Oc­to­ber 2017 then CEO Dave Williams re­signed from the ODPM amid wide­spread crit­i­cism over the agency’s slow re­sponse to a flood­ing cri­sis.

The ODPM has been list­ing weath­er alerts on its web­site since Oc­to­ber 16.

Just af­ter 4 pm yes­ter­day, the agency post­ed pic­tures of the emer­gency clear­ing of the Guaya­mare New Cut Chan­nel by the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to help with the flood wa­ter runoff.

At 5 pm yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the De­fence Force and Red Cross used in­flat­able rafts to ma­noeu­vre through flood­ed streets in St He­le­na, Kel­ly Vil­lage, and Cen­teno to res­cue peo­ple who had been left strand­ed overnight.