Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Green­vale res­i­dents can now sigh re­lief as four ad­di­tion­al pumps have been in­stalled at the de­ten­tion pond as a pre­ven­ta­tive flood­ing mea­sure, bring­ing the to­tal to six pumps.

Ac­cord­ing to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s (HDC) cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, Dike Noel, a team from the HDC’s Es­tate Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion vis­it­ed the Green­vale Park com­mu­ni­ty on Wednes­day af­ter­noon to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and en­sure that the sys­tems are op­er­a­tional.

On Thurs­day, a tech­ni­cal team led by the HDC’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Brent Lyons, was on-site “to con­duct an ini­tial as­sess­ment and de­ter­mine if any ad­di­tion­al re­sources were re­quired.”

“In light of the fact that flood­wa­ter had gath­ered on two streets, a de­ci­sion was made to dis­trib­ute flood bags to res­i­dents on those streets, in the event, that wa­ter en­ters the bound­aries of their prop­er­ties. It is im­por­tant to note that no homes were im­pact­ed by any flood wa­ter,” Noel said.

“As a re­sult of the con­tin­ued rain­fall dur­ing the day, a fur­ther de­ci­sion was made to in­stall four ad­di­tion­al pumps on the de­ten­tion pond. These ad­di­tion­al pumps en­sured that wa­ter was re­moved from the de­ten­tion pond at a faster rate. It must be not­ed that the berm held, there were no breach­es and that the lev­el of wa­ter in the de­ten­tion pond re­ced­ed quick­ly, thus re­duc­ing the wa­ter lev­els in the drains in the com­mu­ni­ty. As at mid­day on Fri­day the lev­els are quite low,” he added.

Al­so, on Thurs­day, the HDC’s So­cial and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices De­part­ment con­duct­ed a brief as­sess­ment ex­er­cise to as­cer­tain the so­cial func­tion­ing of its res­i­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and the el­der­ly, sub­se­quent to the heavy rains, “This ex­er­cise was nec­es­sary in or­der to iden­ti­fy any ear­ly signs of post-trau­ma and anx­i­ety which may have been ex­pe­ri­enced by our res­i­dents. All res­i­dents who were vis­it­ed were fine and they were as­sured that the mit­i­ga­tion sys­tems were func­tion­ing as they should; there­fore, there wasn’t a need for un­nec­es­sary pan­ic and con­cern.”

Ac­cord­ing to Lyons, “a num­ber of res­i­dents have been shar­ing videos and pho­tos of the wa­ter lev­els in the de­ten­tion pond and videos and pho­tos from last year’s flood­ing, thus cre­at­ing pan­ic,” “While I un­der­stand the con­cerns, I wish to ad­vise that the mit­i­ga­tion sys­tems which were im­ple­ment­ed ear­li­er be­fore the start of the hur­ri­cane sea­son, are do­ing ex­act­ly what they are de­signed to do.”

Dur­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion of flood bags, last week, an HDC staff mem­ber was as­sault­ed by a res­i­dent of the Green­vale Park com­mu­ni­ty.

Lyons ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment with what tran­spired and urged all res­i­dents, notwith­stand­ing their fears and con­cerns, to en­gage the em­ploy­ees in a man­ner that pro­motes the achieve­ment of the com­mon goal, which is to en­sure that res­i­dents re­ceive the nec­es­sary care and at­ten­tion when they are most need­ed.

Be­fore the start of the 2019 hur­ri­cane sea­son, the HDC im­ple­ment­ed a num­ber of mit­i­ga­tion ini­tia­tives in Green­vale Park. These in­clud­ed the rais­ing of the con­tain­ment berm to ful­ly sur­round the com­mu­ni­ty; rais­ing of the berm and cul­vert, cross­ing the east­ern ac­cess road; rais­ing of the road­ways sur­round­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and con­struct­ing a road to con­nect La Hor­quet­ta South and Green­vale Park, which will be used an al­ter­na­tive ex­it route for res­i­dents. Wa­ter­cours­es were cleaned and pumps were placed to treat with any ris­ing wa­ter lev­els. In ad­di­tion to these works, the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s Drainage Di­vi­sion al­so con­duct­ed works on the wa­ter­cours­es which sur­round Green­vale Park.