PHOTO ABOVE: Receding flood waters in Paynesville
By Edwin M. Fayia, III
The nightmare continues for many residents of low-lying areas in Monrovia and around Liberia, as torrential rains pour this rainy season creating nightmare for hundreds of people.
As usual, flood waters occasioned by the torrential rainfall, have begun to cause miserable hardships for dwellers in flood-prone areas.
Correspondingly, the nightmare associated with this unending menace always witnessed the displacements and homelessness for those that permanently reside in those watersheds prone flood areas of Montserrado County, with reports of people in other counties going through similar nightmare. Just last week, many households in Monrovia’s densely populated slum settlement of West Point were made homeless by sea erosion after heavy rains.
Hence, since mid-July 2019, the sporadic downpour of rain continues to place slum dwellers and flood prone communities in Monrovia, Duala, Waterside and Paynesville Red-Light under the predicaments of homelessness and displacement in those areas.
On several occasions, residents and business entities in the affected areas are under cover darkness homes and business outfits are engulfed in dirty flood water for several hours.
Regrettably, year-in and year-out, those slum and flood prone dwellers do not take cue from the fact that every year; their areas will be affected as a result of heavy flood water mainly occasioned by downpour of rain.
Moreover, for the month of July 2019, several communities in Monrovia, Duala, Water and Rally Time Market as well as many parts of central Monrovia Randall, Gurley, Carey and Buzzy Quarters continue to be inundated with dirty flood water.
One of the hardest hit areas around the Rally Time Market is the Soniewein Clinic that continues to encounter piles of garbage thrown by residents of the area in the drainage that has out lived its usefulness.
At the Waterside commercial hub in central Monrovia, the entrance to the densely populated slum community of West Point is on many occasions blocked by the uncontrollable flood waters coming from houses on the hill of Ashmun and King Sao Bosso/Front Streets.
In the Sinkor belt of Monrovia few yards away at the Gbangay Town community as a result of heavy downpour of rain about a week ago residents and vehicle owners were prevented from having access to the main Tubman Boulevard that leads to central Monrovia.
In the Monrovia suburb of Paynesville, Red-Light Market, all major entry points to the nation largest food business center are always engulfed huge flood water to the detriment of pedestrians, commercial, private vehicles and the thousands of streets peddlers.
A notable and unattended place at the Paynesville Joe Bar Community is the front view of the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) substation drainage as the rain comes; the area is transformed into a mini lake that poses serious challenges to vehicular movement.
According to residents and top media executives, that identical drainage area has not been rehabilitated for more than forty (40) years by both past and present governments of Liberia.
In spite of extensive media coverage of the outdated and a clogged drainage outlet at the front of the LEC substation at the Joe Bar Community, such public outcries have been allegedly ignored. And the overflow of flood water in the substation could one day cause a serious electrical shock and a serious disaster.
Residents and business owners of the Joe Bar Community in Paynesville .have on several occasions expressed grave concern about the non-existent drainage at the front of the LEC substation. Therefore, such sentiments continue to fall on deaf ears of authorities.
Mr. Philip Armstrong Jones, a resident of Joe Bar in an interview with this Reporter said that they will continue to cry out endlessly, perhaps someone and somewhere will take practical steps to solve the drainage problem at the LEC substation in Paynesville.