By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

AFTER decades of wading through floodwater and replacing ruined furniture, Pinewood Gardens residents voiced frustration and hope as officials unveiled a $20 million drainage plan aimed at finally ending the community’s long-standing flooding crisis, which was worsened recently by Tropical Storm Imelda, which inundated large parts of the neighbourhood.

Many at the Ministry of Works town-hall meeting said they were exhausted by years of promises that never materialised. One resident said people had been waiting more than 40 years while repeatedly suffering flood damage, furniture loss, and high recovery costs. Another woman recalled that during a previous downpour, a Defence Force officer had to rescue her from her apartment after floodwater rose to her chest. She said she lost most of her belongings and was still trying to recover financially.

A Jacaranda Street resident described being trapped in her home for days during the storm, while another from Pigeon Plum Street said she had to wade through waist-deep water to reach food and help. Ms Fields of Plane Street said repeated flooding had destroyed her appliances and left her without a working refrigerator.

Some demanded compensation, arguing that developers, the government, and banks should be held accountable for years of neglect.

Others called for unity and urged residents to support the initiative. Long-time resident Samuel Bethel said the plan offered “a real opportunity to bring lasting change” if the community stood behind it, while Darlene Johnson of Jacaranda Street thanked officials for engaging residents directly and said she hoped the project would finally reach completion.

Despite moments of tension, several attendees praised the Ministry’s outreach and urged residents to look beyond politics.

Chief Engineer Francis Clarke said the $20 million project, part of a wider Inter-American Development Bank partnership, seeks to strengthen climate resilience, improve mobility, and modernise infrastructure across New Providence, with Pinewood identified as a top priority.

“The rainwater intensity that we had 30 or 40 years ago is not the same that we have today,” he said, noting that existing drainage systems “do not meet 21st century standards.”

He explained that Pinewood’s geography, nestled between two ridges, creates a bowl effect that traps rainfall. The plan includes new open drainage channels with grates along main roads, settling ponds, and three canals that will funnel water safely to the sea.

Environmental safeguards are built in, he said, including filtration systems and oil separators to stop pollutants from entering marine areas. He acknowledged residents’ concerns about upkeep, saying past neglect would not be repeated. “Right now, we have a reactive culture,” he said. “We will be implementing an asset management system where we will be doing regular, routine maintenance so we won’t have to be so reactive.”

Mr Clarke said the project’s design phase is nearly complete and will go to tender in November, with construction expected to start early in 2026 and take up to 18 months. During the works, residents should expect dust, diversions, and temporary disruption to roadside vendors, managed under an Environmental and Social Management Plan.

He said the devastation from Tropical Storm Imelda, which dumped more than eight inches of rain on New Providence, underscored how outdated drainage systems can no longer cope with modern rainfall. “There are areas in New Providence that never used to flood, and we’ve seen unprecedented flooding,” he said, citing Chippingham and St Albans Drive among the hardest hit.

Mr Clarke credited daily drain clearing this summer for sparing parts of Pinewood and downtown from worse damage, calling consistent maintenance “key to mitigating flooding.”

Pinewood MP Myles LaRoda said the turnout reflected how deeply residents care about finding a solution. He said the issue of compensation raised by homeowners was a complex one.

“The issue of reparation and compensation is one that you don’t want to dismiss, but there are some legal implications also,” he said. “I sympathise with those homeowners who are losing furniture, but again, if it starts in Pinewood, where does it end?”

Mr LaRoda noted that successive governments have often provided help on moral rather than legal grounds. “Governments have taken positions of providing assistance to the public in a lot of cases where they’re not legally mandated to do so,” he said.

He added that the project would inevitably disrupt traffic once work begins, since the planned canals and drains will cut across several streets. “If we’re going to be digging canals, those canals will run, and you’re talking about, where Pinewood is now, just on geography alone, going into the canals you’re going to be going across streets,” he said.

Mr LaRoda said teams had already started repairs in parts of the community, filling “craters and holes” and clearing drains along Cordia Street. He said the broader $20 million investment would include road paving and speed bumps to reduce wave action from speeding vehicles.

Describing the project as long overdue, he said: “The encouraging thing about this is, and the question was asked, why now? When I campaigned here, I campaigned the PLP’s position was we were going to bring a resolution to this vexing problem. The Bahamas is different now than it was 40 years ago. Those remediations suggested 40 years ago did not take into account climate change, the heat, the moisture, and the water that is there.”

He said the Pinewood work will serve as a pilot for flood-prone communities nationwide. “At the end of the day, my hope and prayer, and the position of the government along with the Ministry of Works and in partnership with the IDB, is that at the end of this process, that pain and that frustration would all be worth it,” he said. “A year and a half or whatever the timeline is, and we end up with a product that we can be proud of.”