Trucks remove 500 loads of silt from Sandy Gully

Some 500 truckloads of silt have been removed from Sandy Gully in St Andrew over the last few days, in preparation for a direct hit from Hurricane Melissa.

Works Minister Robert Morgan said the emergency mitigation work comes ahead of a planned desilting programme for next year.

"The most important thing that we are trying to do is, protect lives and property of the people who live adjacent to the bridge near Seaview Gardens, and the bridge that is on Spanish Town Road, which is a very critical bridge that connects to the ports," he said.

"We've removed 500 loads of silt from under the bridge over the last five days and some persons are saying, well, we should clean all the way to the sea. That is 1.5 kilometres from the bridge to the sea, and it is 37 metres wide. If that section that we cleaned was 500 truckloads of silt, think about how many trucks and excavators and backhoes and frontend loaders would be required to remove 1.5 kilometres of silt? A couple of thousand trucks," he noted.

Sandy Gully serves as the largest component of the Corporate Area's gully system, spanning approximately six miles (10 km) from the foothills of eastern St Andrew and flows westward through several urban communities, including Seaview Gardens, Waterhouse, and Riverton City, before emptying into Kingston Harbour via Hunt's Bay.

"We have done as much as the engineers have said we can do at this time to create a pathway under the bridge so that water can flow. Based on what we have done, the bridge is safer, the flow is no longer compromised," said Morgan.

He said that while "much work" to mitigate the impact of the impending hurricane on infrastructure, residents are being urged not to engage compromised infrastructure.

"If the bridge looks shaky, do not attempt to go on the bridge [or] across the bridge. Do not try to traverse gullies that are flooded. We have historical evidence of persons in very powerful vehicles seeking to traverse gullies, and they lost the competition. So we're advising the public that this is a serious hurricane. Our gullies cannot be used while they are flooded," he cautioned.

- Kimone Francis

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