RESIDENTS of Stanleytown, West Bank Demerara woke on Tuesday morning to over 12 inches of floodwater, after a koker door was left open by a negligent pump attendant during high tide. Teams with representatives from the Regional Democratic Council (RDC), the Patentia-Touvlugt Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and Ministry of Local Government have since visited the area.
Shopkeeper and father of two, 38-year-old Dextroy Connell, well known as “Urphy”, who runs a variety shop in the Stanleytown community, said his shop was greatly affected. Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, on Tuesday morning, Connell said he had not yet ascertained the extent of his losses.
“I’m still just trying to figure out how much. A lot of neighbourhood people come and chip in to help me bring out stuff. I’m glad for the neighbourhood help, but like there’s just so much like I don’t know what I’m going to do; I’m just cleaning up and will see,” Connell commented.

Connell said he was alerted to the flooding by a neighbour around 04:00hrs, and immediately went to his shop which is located some distance away from his home.
“When I open up there was water all over so I tried to raise the fridge and get things off the ground and just to get things out the water. A lot of things was under water, things that you don’t normally put up because you don’t expect that water would’ve come so high. I really got caught,” Connell recounted.
He estimated that the water in his shop was over a foot high. “It was like nearly two feet. I had three freezers in the shop and I had two of them above one feet and it pass that. We try to build that up because the water was still coming in and we didn’t know how high it would’ve been. We had to put everything out on the road and the bridge; had to carry out the freezer but there’s a lot of things I can’t get back,” he said.
Fellow Stanleytown resident, Neiberth Hale had some amount of furniture that were affected by the flooding but was grateful that most of her property was in an elevated section of her house. She was alerted to the flooding around 06:00hrs.

“Somebody call me minutes to six. I went out and saw the whole yard with everything flooded. It was about a foot and more; some parts might have been higher. I’m living high but I have a room downstairs where I have a nice chair set and I wake up and meet that flood out,” she noted. Region Three, Regional Chairman, Inshan Ayube, in a telephone interview with the Guyana Chronicle, noted that he began receiving reports about the flooding from 07:00hrs and a team that included the Regional Executive Officer (REO) was dispatched to the area. He explained, however, that the koker in question comes under the authority of the Patentia-Touvlugt NDC, and as such, disciplinary action for the errant pump attendant would have to be dealt with by that body.

He noted that the pump door was subsequently closed, while the water was expected to recede from the communities when the koker doors would be reopened during low tide at approximately 11:00hrs. The Guyana Chronicle also contacted Deputy Chairman of the Patentia-Touvlugt NDC, Roy Bennett, who also confirmed that the NDC had received reports and dispatched a team to the area. At the time of the interview, he said the NDC was still in the process of assessing how many households would have been affected by the incident. He would not comment on what was said by the pump attendant as to why he neglected to close the koker door.
“I will not divulge such now, but the Council has it under investigation,” Bennet offered.