-Woes of urban Dwellers intensify due to Heavy rains
As usual, the annual six months of rains in Liberia has started with the nightmare of perennial flooding in several urban and rural cities, as the woes of thousands of dwellers in those areas have begun in earnest.
Indications of an unending solutions to the perennial flooding occasioned by heavy rains seems not to be sight, residents and businesses in those areas are bracing themselves for the nightmares of displacement and homelessness.
In a week survey of affected communities in Monrovia and Paynesville in Montserrado County points to the fact that dirty flood water has begun misery, agony, frustration and hardships for the residents and business entities.
Warnings, cautions and alerts to residents and businesses of the every year affected areas have gone or disappeared in tins of air in the cities of Monrovia, Paynesville, Buchanan and Robertsport as well as Greenville, Barclayville, Kakata just to name a few.
Such warnings and cautions have come from several environmental and health stakeholders and advocacy groups not for residents and business entities build their structures in waterways and flood plains in flood prone areas in the affected areas in those cities and urban settlements.
However, regrettably, such repeated warnings and directives had repeatedly not been adhered to as huge construction works continue unabated by business entities and residents in the affected communities in many of rural and urban cities in the country.
Principally in Monrovia, areas perpetually affected as a result of the endless flooding are West Point, Duala, Waterside, Rally Time and Soniewein Markets and communities.
Moreover the entrance of the West Point community and few feet from the main entrance to the densely populated slum borough a lake of flood water continues to settle there for the past several decades at the heart of the commercial hub of Waterside in Monrovia.
Even an hour of rainfall in Monrovia, the decades old drainages are over flooded and the principal streets end up been swallowed by the mountains of garbage piles.
At the Slipway water front of Mesurado River beneath the Crown Hill area, flood water and the threats from the river continue to destroy some of the makeshift and zinc shacks at the mouth of the river for the past several years.
Residents and business entities of Monrovia and Paynesville of the affected communities and business districts were submerged into huge flood water as a result of the heavy downpour of rains in the two urban cities in Montserrado County.
Specific areas submerged under the flooded water in Monrovia were Rally Time Market and Soniewein slum community a stone throw from the executive and legislative seats of the current Liberian Government.
In the commercial hub of Red-Light Market in the Monrovia’s Paynesville suburb, flood water was seen in the heart of the commercial center, where hundreds of traders and buyers were also seen in frantic negotiations in the midst of flood water at the Bernard Farm and Forestry Development Authority (FDA) parking stations.
At the Jar Bar Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) substation, a no drainage area for more thirty years not rehabilitated was again flooded with dirty water from nearby homes and business outfits and at that identical spot are situated vital electrical installations under construction.
In spite of the extensive media publications highlighting the pending dangers been posed to the vital LEC installations, authorities are yet to take practical steps to ensure the safety of the electrical equipment on that piece of land at the Joe Bar in Paynesville.
Facial expressions of those residents and business owners of the affected flood prone communities have always been that frustration, misery, hardship and occasional homelessness as a result of the perpetual flooding during the rainy season.
A permanent resident Slipway Benedict Seyon, 48, told the Daily Observer during the weekend that despite of the many warnings from environmental groups over the years, he has nowhere to go for now.
“I will only continue to bear the hardship and perhaps one day my socioeconomic might improve and then I will decide to build another house somewhere in our city of Monrovia,” Mr. Seyon asserted.
In Paynesville, Joe Bar resident Tom B. Zulu, 40 sounded a clarion appeal to authorities of LEC and the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) to exert all efforts aimed at rehabilitating the clogged drainage in order to protect the vital electrical installations.