Drought brings unexpected relief to flood-prone New Haven

For once, when Cindy looks outside her New Haven home, there is no floodwater to wade through, no furniture to lift and no need to figure out where she will go if the water rises too high.

While much of Jamaica longs for rain amid the ongoing drought, the prolonged dry spell has brought an unlikely reprieve to residents of the flood-prone St Andrew community.

When THE STAR visited New Haven last year, residents were lifting furniture onto concrete blocks, wading through floodwater and complaining that taxis were reluctant to enter the community.

This time, the roads were dry.

For Victoria, the change has allowed residents to enjoy something as simple as spending more time outdoors.

“We are outside more. When the rain come, we can’t really be outside because of the water on the road,” she said.

The dry conditions have also brought another benefit — fewer mosquitoes in areas that would normally become filled with water.

“The mosquito issue is less because there is less water around. It is much easier to live now mi nuh mind the sun,” Victoria said.

New Haven’s low-lying location along the Duhaney River makes the community vulnerable to flooding, particularly when heavy rainfall causes the river to overflow. The problem is compounded by blockages and debris in the river, which impede water flow into the harbour.

“If a rain dew now, me flood,” Cindy said.

She said once the flood water rises to a certain level, navigating sections of the community becomes impossible, leaving many residents with no choice but to evacuate and find somewhere to stay.

Cindy recalled particularly severe flooding, which she believes occurred in 2023, when she said water remained in sections of the community for approximately three months.

“For three months water deh pon we. That is the ‘terribleest’ flood,” she recalled. “You wake up, yuh in water you go to bed, you’re in water.”

Living in the water for such an extended period, she said, also took a physical toll on residents, including problems with their skin.

“Last Christmas me say, ‘no man, we have to do something.’ Five ladies me and some other ladies went out there. We block the road because we fed up,” she recalled.

At its worst, she said, floodwater rose as high as the windows of homes, forcing residents to evacuate and seek refuge elsewhere.

Yet leaving New Haven permanently is not necessarily an easy solution for Cindy.

She rents the house she occupies and said that, unlike home-owners who can undertake improvements to protect their properties, she has limited ability to make major changes.

“This is not my house, you know. Me pay rent, and the landlord dead and the people live a foreign, so me can’t do nothing about this house,” she explained. “It’s not my place.”

Moving elsewhere would also mean finding another affordable rental and taking on another recurring expense.

Repeated flooding, meanwhile, has become so normal that Cindy speaks about cleaning up and starting over almost as routine.

“Now when we get flood, it run off and we gone back to stage one clean up. A so we used to it,” she said.

The respite comes as Jamaica grapples with severe drought conditions and depleted water sources. The Government has approved an additional $500 million to strengthen its drought response, including support for water trucking and other emergency measures.