Coastal village residents feel vulnerable after Beryl bashing

Residents of Six Men’s, St Peter, are concerned about their future following the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl.

The coastal community suffered extensive damage to the road, the popular Braddy’s Bar and the community centre.

One resident, who gave his name as “Charlie Boat”, said they had been told a breakwater would be built to protect them but that has never materialised.

“What is to happen with the fisherfolk here? Where the road break ’way is where we used to push off and pull up our boats,” he said.

Another resident lamented the lack of a plan to protect them from the ravages of nature.

“I don’t believe enough is being done to protect the coastal areas to the north of the island. While this particular hurricane was definitely record-breaking, as some of the older persons in the communities themselves said that they had never seen the sea like that, more should have been done before it got to this point.

“Over the years, all types of people from regional or international organisations come and visit us to showcase the area and the problem. They seem to always make their way to Six Men’s and Half Moon Fort (in St Lucy) because we are the poster children for coastal zone problems. My thing is, it’s not that [the authorities] don’t know there’s a problem, so the question is, why is no one doing more to fix it?

“There are minor things that can be done to give some level of protection in the interim while we’re looking for the bigger projects to arise,” she said.

She suggested boulders or groynes could be put into place as breakwaters as a short-term measure.

“If we keep worrying about a long-term plan, there may not be a long-term plan to be installed at all because the people may be gone. The whole thing may be gone. Because within this last week, on that day of the hurricane, we experienced waves that, as I said, we’ve never seen before,” she said.

Clayton Powley said getting the centre back up was important as it was a popular spot to lime. As a mason, he said he was willing to help out. He too said there was a need for a breakwater.

Member of Parliament for St Peter Colin Jordan maintained the people of Six Men’s were not being ignored.

“We will do as much as we can as quickly as we can but it will take time. The Prime Minister toured on Tuesday, along with myself, Minister [of Home Affairs Wilfred] Abrahams and [Deputy Prime Minister Santia] Bradshaw, so we saw first-hand the damage. We know work must be done not only at Six Men’s but right along the entire West Coast,” he told the DAILY NATION.

“I am not able to say what Government will do but I know it is important that the centre be restored. The people of Six Men’s are resilient and are already being proactive by approaching businesses for help. On our end, we have been in meetings with engineers and decisions will be made on how best to protect the area from rough seas,” he said.

Jordan said the damaged road was a matter of priority for the Ministry of Transport and Works and repairs would begin very shortly.

Another burning issue was access in light of ongoing construction on the nearby bridge at Port Ferdinand. Notifications from contractor ONE Builders said the bridge was closed from Friday to Sunday so traffic was diverted. However, the issue was the length of the diversion as this meant driving through St Lucy to get back to St Peter. To help ease the inconvenience for those using public transportation, a free shuttle system was put into place to take people to Speightstown.

“It was rough, especially knowing gas prices. Imagine having to make a quick run to Speightstown and having to go through St Lucy? Hopefully it’s for the greater good,” one woman said.

A man said businesses in the area suffered as people did not want to travel that far, while another said more signage should have been placed to alert drivers earlier as many people were driving into Six Men’s only to have to turn around.

When contacted, communications specialist for the contractors Joy-Ann Haigh apologised for the inconvenience. She said the road would have reopen yesterday but due to inclement weather, work would continue Tuesday and Wednesday where the road would be single-lane. “We tried to work quickly but we must be mindful of the weather. If anyone has any suggestions on anything we can do to better ease them, we welcome them to contact us,” she said.

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