GOVERNMENT has mounted an emergency intervention to block several breaches along a four-kilometer stretch of sea defences at Mahaicony, Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice), which occurred on Sunday causing damage to homes and household equipment and widespread destruction of crops and livestock in at least two villages.

In response to a crisis situation, several Government agencies including the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI) Ministry  of Agriculture, the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) , the Guyana Livestock Development Agency (GLDA)  the Civil Defence Commission, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB),  the National Agricultural Research and Extension  Institute (NAREI) and  the Department of Public Health visited the area  and provided assistance to  the  hard hit residents of Dantzig and Highdam villages.
The flood waters forced the closure of the Carlton Hall Primary and Nursery schools yesterday and due to the depth of the flood waters, they are likely to remain closed for today, a Regional Official disclosed.

This newspaper was told that members of some of the hardest hit homesteads have been offered shelter but all  had declined saying that they preferred to stay at relatives until the spring tides are over and the flood waters recede.

The GLDA, on the ground, mobilized feed for livestock, had veterinarians on standby and helped to move livestock away from the flood-affected areas to higher ground.
NDIA sought to assist rice farmers by empoldering areas.
Chief Executive Officer of the NDIA, Mr Frederick  Flatts, said that the NDIA machines in the area were engaged in trying to protect rice fields from the salt water.
He said that he intends to meet with the Sea Defence Agency today to determine how else the NDIA can assist in alleviating the situation.
Minister of Public Infrastructure, Mr. David  Patterson, met with residents  yesterday and told them  that the Ministry will find a safe staging area for the off-loading of boulders and then transfer them to  the sites of the breaches via a smaller barge using  the Bellamy Canal.

He said that a new staging area is necessary due to the turbulent nature of the Atlantic Ocean in the affected areas along its coastline.
He said that the immediate need would be to stop the breaches, get the salt water off the land and then look at a long term and more permanent solution such as the installation of a rip rap defence for the four-kilometer section of the coast where erosion had been most rapid.

Patterson said that his ministry will meet several contractors today and assign them to block the breaches as soon as the spring tide wane.

“There will be several contractors and one will be assigned to each breach so that the work gets done faster while we simultaneously try [to] get the salt water off the land.”
He noted that sea defence work had been ongoing in the area since early this year but what had been discovered was that the wave action had been eroding areas around those which had been fortified with boulders. “The attack was so relentless: we had to be moving from one critical area to the next; all that was happening was stop gap. So we have to move to get a solid stretch of boulders in the first instance and then the ultimate rip rap defence,” he said.

He told the residents that the final resolution could have a price tag of over $3B.
Meanwhile, farmers at Cottage Village, east of hard-hit Dantzig and Highdam villages,  said that a section of the sea dam was about to collapse.
Minister Patterson asked his staff to send an excavator to the village within twenty four hours to seal a potential breach there.
However, the hardest hit villages were Dantzig and Highdam where hundreds of acres north and south of the public road were inundated with salt water  leading to widespread  destruction of rice and cash crop cultivations in these areas.
Residents, who are mainly farmers, reported loss of poultry, sheep and cash crops .
Rice fields north of the public road, closer to the Atlantic, bore the brunt of the flooding.
Those south of the public road became affected when the salt water crossed over via the drainage channels and then entered the rice cultivations there.
Ms Donna Alphonso lost six ponds in which she had been rearing fish. She said that some twenty heads of sheep were suspected lost because they had been trapped in the flood on the northern side of the village.
Cattle farmers reported the loss of animals trapped on that same side of the road while some, who were quick in response, managed to save parts of their flock and bring them out to safety along the roadway.
Staffers of the Ministry of Agriculture visited homes in the villages and collected information from them on the nature and extent of their losses due to the flooding.
This information, it was said, will be used as a means of arriving at relief for those affected.
Cullis McGarrell of Highdam was forced to abandon his home after he woke and found it waist deep in water Sunday night.

He fled with only the clothing on his back.
Residents said that the water started to invade their yards early Sunday morning during the high tides.

The situation worsened during the afternoon.
“The waves were high and then the entire section of the sea dam gave way and the water came in very rapidly.
“I looked round in my house and everything was sailing on the water, one resident, living in a bottom flat, said.

She tried to store household items on shelves and other high places but had to abandon the effort and wade her way to safety after the level became dangerously high.
Regional Health Officer for the Department of Health in Region Five, Dr Desmond Nicholson, said that the Department had issued advisories to residents via its Facebook page and had printed and handed out pamphlets to them which advised them on how to operate during flood conditions.
The Department had also diverted necessary medication for flood-related diseases and will monitor the situation on a daily basis.
The spring tide is expected to last until October 2nd and residents were last night bracing for another onslaught.