Frequent flooding affecting Road Town businesses
Chairman of the BVI Chamber of Commerce Shaina Smith-Archer has called for short-term solutions to the problems that cause flooding in Road Town, saying businesses are paying dearly for those disasters.
Last week, heavy rains doused the BVI and caused flooding and damage in many areas. Works Minister Kye Rymer said the issue was caused by indiscriminate dumping. But Smith-Archer said the maintenance of drains and ghuts could alleviate the issue in the short term.
“It’s not just about cleaning ghuts but also about maintaining the drains. Oftentimes we see literal grass growing out of the drains. This says there’s enough to support vegetation. We have to do a better job because it’s definitely having cost implications to businesses if they are experiencing flooding every time there’s rain,” Smith-Archer told JTV News.
Though it seems like a logical action, Smith-Archer said many businesses aren’t keen on getting insurance coverage for flooding due to the additional high cost they’d have to incur for the security.
But she said some are beginning to get creative to protect their businesses from flood waters.
“After the hurricanes, all insurance went up and that’s one of the biggest operational costs businesses are incurring. I don’t know that persons are taking a heavier interest in insurance because even property insurance went up. They (businesses) are trying to mitigate in other ways – for instance, this week I went to the hairdresser and I saw sandbags and that’s when I saw that there’s a lot of anxiety around what we can expect for the (hurricane) season,” Smith-Archer explained.
Many are expecting the already fragile infrastructure to crumble even further during this hurricane season. An active season is expected, with 23 named storms projected throughout the season which starts on June 1 and ends November 30.
Eleven hurricanes are expected to form, and of those, five are expected to develop into major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or stronger.
Higher-than-average sea temperatures are also expected to provide the heat that will encourage storm development.
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Disturbing nature’s intricate balance has long-term repercussions. Moving the Wickhams Cays from Road Harbour and indiscriminately dumping the dredged spoil along the town’s shoreline, is a case in point.
This person is a waste of time! Always talking after the fact, pointing out the obvious retroactively, and devoid of solutions and/or planning.
Reason why the CCHA is a joke and always will be under her ‘guidance’!
Always a personal agenda at play!
What suggestion or solution is being offered to mitigate these floodings.
In response to “action”.
Given the infrastructure that has been placed on the reclaimed land, there are no quick fix solutions. Concrete cannot absorb water. Large underground culverts would have to be constructed with multiple screened collection points to channel the runoff from the hillside above Road Town and the standing water on the flat land.
Perhaps the territory’s inhouse engineers can suggest alternative solutions.
My solution of mitigation of flooding is to have some emergency flood pumps with full emergency power supply meaning generator, mounted on stilt concrete building with large ducts pipe towards the sea to lead that flood water underground pass the businesses, remember the sea water is actually at the market square, it’s been land reclaim that carried the cay all the way to administration complex, I saw these pump solution in the Bahamas while working there on the power line as a linesman, yeah it was some huge trash pumps with macerator to grind debree, Tortola is mountainous and will constantly have water rushing from the hills, so the solution is to stop it from running on the surface to the sea and instead in large ducts hydraulically assisted by these giant pumps.
Based on the picture that bridge is clearly too low for water to pass freely, especially if debris is in it. And the water can easily overflow into the low lying areas like where the Hymac is…
All the assessments paid for been ignored for years. That bridge has been to low for decades. But yet still we are confused why we are flooding. Even if the side drains are cleared, once the major ghuts don’t have free flow the town will flood. No matter how you clear the drains on the roadway. UP’s fire station and supavalue Ghut. Without these being addressed, we will flood with all heavy rains.
and most of Road Town have one thing in common. Lots of water in places it should not be. In Venice it’s sea water in RT it’s rain water. Maybe it time to remove the roads from ‘Road’ Town and dig canals!!
Have a plan and clean the ghuts (guts) regularly.