By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

SCORES of residents in Perpall Tract were stranded in their homes with dwindling supplies yesterday after floodwaters from Tropical Storm Imelda cut off access to their community.

Restaurant worker Justine Flowers said she was forced to wade through knee-deep water to get to work yesterday, only to be met with indifference from her employer.

“I have the pictures and stuff like that. But they ain’t care, they just want you come to work,” she said, explaining cars could not pass without stalling. She recalled her shoe getting stuck while trying to reach dry land and said she now has nowhere to sleep after her shift. “I cannot make it back home through that water,” she said.

Ms Flowers lives in a nine-bedroom home with her cousin, aunt and father. Her father is immobile and her aunt suffers from diabetes, making the lack of supplies more urgent. Although her home has been spared flooding, she said the water system is not working. Electricity was only restored on Monday night.

Another resident, Andrea Moxey, said floodwaters reached two feet outside her condo, trapping her inside with her mother and four-year-old son.

“Most of the cars in the driveway outside, have water in them, and one person did say that they tried to drive through, but their car stalled,” she said. She added that although the water subsided from her porch by yesterday, it remained deeper elsewhere in the neighbourhood, cutting off movement.

Restored electricity has been a relief, she said, but many homes remain surrounded by water. “It’s super annoying because it’s not sanitary,” she said. “I have a baby who wants to walk up and down.”

Travis Robinson, the Free National Movement candidate for Fort Charlotte in the next general election, said he used a truck to rescue residents and has been distributing water and other supplies. He blamed the flooding on a major development on West Bay Street, on land earmarked for the new $290m hospital at Perpall Tract Wellfield.

“The water would normally recede under the road and dump into the pond area that’s in the back of the gas station,” he said, claiming the wetlands were compacted during construction and natural drainage blocked.

Disaster Risk Management Authority managing director Aaron Sargeant said pump trucks from the Ministry of Works and the Water and Sewerage Corporation were deployed to clear floodwaters. He noted that dense urban areas often lack natural runoff to absorb excess rain.

Minister of State for the Water & Sewerage Corporation Leon Lundy said water must be pumped out and disposed of elsewhere, with most being diverted near Saunders Beach. He added that the government is consulting contractors on permanent solutions to reduce flooding in vulnerable communities.