GEORGETOWN residents got more than they had budgeted for on Friday when a continuous downpour of rain forced them to use sandbags to prevent rising water from invading their homes and damaging their holiday furnishings.One woman posted on social media at about 11:00 hrs on Friday, “Help! Help! Urgently need, four bags of sand. I’m under attack. Watta imma house.”

Responses were low, but one woman suggested that the besieged woman should hire a taxi, since sand was being sold by the bagful at a place on Durban Street, Georgetown.

“We need sand bags!” an overseas-based Guyanese woman cried. Visiting for Christmas, by 12:00 hours on Friday she had already experienced flood water creeping into her one-bedroom home at Festival City, Georgetown.
“My room under water, I need sand bags,” she, too, cried.

The woman, Jacqueline Bailey, said she returned home to spend the holidays with her son and his family, but has been greeted by a rainstorm. Flood waters now pose a threat to her lower-flat home and its belongings.

Bailey says that although she understands the weather is beyond human control and some things take time to fix, those in authority must urgently look at improving drainage in the City.

Rain poured all Friday morning in Georgetown, and at about 10:00 hours, flood water began creeping into the lower flat apartments. Baily says some of her vacation plans have been thwarted, but she used a towel to mop up the water in her room before squeezing it into a bucket and throwing it outside.
With a hint of frustration, the woman asked, “Where the Mayor and her people at?”

She recalled that since her family had moved into Festival City in 1972, the area had always experienced flooding whenever it rained heavily. “This was going on since 1972 when we moved in here,” she told Guyana Chronicle, noting that she never expected the problem to remain until this day.

“Those in authority should do whatever (is) possible to address poor drainage conditions in the area,” she said, as she asked the Mayor and City Council to provide her a few sand bags “to keep the water from coming in”.