Residents of Runaway Bay and nearby communities in St Ann are still shaking their heads about what hit them and why the prolonged rainfall from Saturday night into Sunday morning, December 11, caused so much grief.
There has been clean up and clearing away of debris in many of the affected areas, some of it starting on the Sunday evening at the end of hours of rain. Main area of work so far has been the Runaway Bay Intersection and the single lane bridge at Mount Edgecombe. Officials have looked at the road cut in two near Dumbarton but no work has started.
But back to that Saturday night and Sunday morning of the rains and floods.
The roadway near Liberty on the Dumbarton to Discovery Bay Road was cut in two; the Runaway Bay main road from Dumbarton was made impassable in at least three sections, for up to an hour and dozens of people watched and took pictures as waters buffeted the one-lane bridge at Mt Edgecombe. A calamity was feared but the water receded leading a raised gully floor and tons of garbage including plastic strewn along the gully’s bed.
Water was everywhere — rushing through homes and fields from Mt Pleasant and Mount Olivet, and Belle Air Meadows through Iron Mountain and down to Mt Edgecombe, and Belle Air scheme. People who have lived for decades in communities nearby could not remember having seen so much water. Some said not even Hurricane Gilbert had brought 12 hours of rain as this system did in and around Dumbarton.
The main road between the one-lane bridge at Mount Edgecombe and Runaway Bay Square became a raging bank-full river. Roadways in Cardiff Hall changed their roles too to rivers, leaving many of them – already pothole infested before the flood — now near disasters. The road from HEART Runaway Bay and Cardiff Hotel was flooded in the lower reaches, near the Rubis station. The grassy island between the North Coast Highway and the access road to the Jewel Golf Club and residences and resorts was inundated and later left as lakes. Access to Jewel Runaway Bay and FDR hotel was impossible for a while.
But the greatest calamity was at the Runaway Bay Cross Road (Square) where waters threw cars about and then pooled stalling several. The waters rose quickly around several vehicles endangering their occupants who abandoned at least four cars.
People are still guessing about what happened as water ended up there from Cardiff Hall, from the Runaway Bay Main Road and poured through the police station and the Calvary Tabernacle Grounds.
The drains were clogged but there is still talk that the wall – built against the sea — about which people have been complaining had a lot to do in turning Cross Roads into a dangerous pool.
