Roads flooded all over the island. Long traffic lines snaking along major highways, byways and roads in and out of The City.
The major bus stand in Fairchild Street bursting at the seams, even as some children at a secondary school were left stranded.
Then there was the sight and smell of raw sewage being washed over the street – again! – in the Hastings, Christ Church area.
These were all a consequences of the sustained rainfall Barbados experienced yesterday, as the island was placed under a flood warning in the evening.
A statement from the Met Office said: “The interaction of an upper-level trough system and a passing tropical wave has been generating some pockets of moderate to heavy showers, periods of rain and isolated thunderstorms.”
It added that this was not only expected to continue today, but to intensify. Rainfall was expected to be about three to five inches.
At Crystal Heights in St James, around 20 people were stranded and unable to get to their homes because the road was impassable due to high water levels. Parliamentary representative for the area, Donville Inniss, pointed fingers at the incomplete CLICO development in the area.
“In the last couple of weeks at least three of the avenues have become impassable. This is really attributed to water running off of land belonging to CLICO. The residents are really suffering as a result of the old CLICO fiasco.
“The development now has been left unattended and areas cut for roads in the extensive development provide a major path for water to run off the land onto the road, and quickly gets to the point where cars driving find it difficult to pass,” he said.
Other areas in the parish, from Holders Hill to Holetown, Westmoreland and Sion Hill, also experienced floodwaters, with many motorists battling long lines and seeking alternative routes to beat the traffic and flooded streets.
In fact, what was meant to be a shortcut for one man turned out to be a turn for the worse for him and three passengers.
Mark Robinson, of Cave Hill, St Michael, told the MIDWEEK NATION that he picked up his 16-year-old daughter from the Frederick Smith Secondary School at Trents, St James, and, given the heavy rainfall, he decided to take home his daughter’s schoolmate and her sister.
To reach their Arch Hall, St Thomas, residence, Robinson decided to go through 5th Avenue, Bagatelle Terrace, just after 4 p.m.
Despite the steady rain, he did not expect the road to be flooded and to his surprise, his truck shut down on him, stranding him and the children.
They had to seek refuge in retiree Evie Cummins’ verandah after wading through waist-deep waters.
Several motorists made desperate attempts to drive through the flooded area, but many had to put their plans in reverse.
At the Daryll Jordan Secondary School in St Lucy, students were stranded up to 5:30 p.m. waiting on buses, which were struggling to get there.
A jam-packed Fairchild Street bus terminal also told the tale of commuters enduring extensive waits for buses to get home.
On Hastings Main Road, a taxi became stuck in a manhole opposite KFC even as raw sewage spewed from the uncovered opening.
The driver, who did not want to be identified, said: “I was driving along the road and all of a sudden I heard a noise.
“When I got out of the car, the front right wheel was in the manhole that the sewage in, and the cap was in the road. I got out and went home [nearby] and wash down myself, as the sewage is all in the road in the floodwaters.”
As a result of the incident, traffic along the usual busy road slowed even more. Pedestrians had to walk through a nearby service station to avoid being splashed with the smelly sewage water. (BW/SB/LK/RL)
