Virgin Islands flooded again

Cars floated away, homes and businesses flooded, and roadways crumbled early Monday morning during the latest in a series of flash floods that have plagued the territory this year.

“It was different: This one, we saw a lot of cars that were moved and slid and went into ditches, hit other cars, created major hazards and road blockages,” said BVI Red Cross Director Stacy Lloyd. “Homes that were already severely impacted from not just the floods but [Tropical Storm] Ernesto — those homes got pounded.”

All told, about 3.5 inches of rain fell between midnight and 5 a.m. Monday in Road Town, and other areas of Tortola reported similar figures, according to the Department of Disaster Management.

No major injuries were reported, but public schools closed Monday and many government offices opened late as officials asked residents to stay home until the roads were cleared.

Flooded By 10:30 a.m. Monday, many roads were still partially covered with mud and rocks as government workers responded and other residents cleaned flooded homes and businesses in low-lying areas.

At Flemming Street in Road Town, which has flooded frequently this year, business owners pumped water out of their shops as fire officers used a fire truck to hose down the street.

Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer was also on the scene speaking to residents.

“We expected rain for the last couple weeks: I don’t think we expected that it would be such an excess,” he told the Beacon. “After the place has been saturated for some time, we’ve seen that for the last couple weeks it has been raining consistently.

This is the effect of some of the build-up in the ghuts as well.” After touring Tortola, Mr. Rymer said the fallout was similar to the damage from other floods in the territory in recent months.

“We’ve seen some landslides in certain places; we’ve seen debris in the roads; we have damages to private properties as well,” he said. “It is what we’ve been seeing for the last rain events.”

Frustrated

Business owners at Flemming Street said they were glad fire officers were helping clean the streets, but they expressed frustration about the frequent flooding in the area and questioned whether the nearby ghuts and drains had been properly cleared before the storm.

Mr. Rymer, however, said that he and his ministry have been “trying our best to do as much drain clearing as possible.”

He added that plans are in the works for longer term solutions to address drainage problems at areas including Joes Hill.

“I just want us to get to the bottom of the problem as we are intending to do so that we can make lives a bit easier for persons who are usually affected,” he said, adding, “There are a lot of studies, recommendations. So we’ll do some tackling of that.”

Red Cross help

Also on Monday, more than a dozen Red Cross volunteers and staff members spent the day helping residents affected by the floods, according to Ms. Lloyd.

“We cleaned homes, and there was a lot of debris on the road, and so we went out with our shovels and our rakes and we cleared a lot of passageways,” she said. “We assisted a lot of persons in their home who had significant damages.”

On Tuesday morning, the volunteers were continuing to assist while also gearing up to offer psychosocial support to victims. “What we finds is that persons are triggered by stuff like this, and they think on Irma,” Ms. Lloyd said. “So we have a different corps of volunteers who are doing mental health.”

Floating vehicles

During the flooding, she added, an unusually high number of cars were swept away.

“We’ve never seen this number of vehicles actually floating — and hit and collided with other vehicles,” she said. She added that she wasn’t sure what caused this phenomenon. “I don’t know if it was because the roads were already damaged: What we’re seeing is that in a lot of the areas where the [cars floated away], the asphalt was lifting,” she said.

She added that the deluge also came as a surprise at a time when the ground was already saturated from previous rains.

“Persons weren’t prepared,” she said. “We didn’t expect this amount of rain overnight.”

Chief Fire Officer Zebalon McLean offered another explanation for the floating vehicles. “Unfortunately, a lot of this has to do with a lot of the double-parking issues that we have,” he told the Beacon, adding that residents should be careful where they leave their vehicles even if they don’t expect heavy rains.

Fire officers

Besides Flemming Street, fire officers assisted at several other areas, including Main Street, the Sunday Morning Well, and Sea Cows Bay, Mr. McLean said.

“This is a regular thing,” he added. “Every time we have heavy rains or flooding, people are requesting assistance with cleaning things or pumping things out.”

Some fire officers also had to address minor problems of their own: Mud and debris washed up in the yard at the Road Town fire station, the Cappoons Bay station yard and driveway flooded, and “a bit of water” got into the Virgin Gorda offices, he said.

Like Mr. Rymer, the fire chief blamed the severity of the flooding in part on a build-up of effects from other recent rains. “I think that some of the leftover debris and silt that didn’t quite come down in previous events were just on the brink of falling, and down the hill it all came,” he said.

Preparedness

Given the frequency and unpredictability of such storms, Mr. McLean warned residents to prepare for the unexpected by keeping their properties and vehicles secure and by closely monitoring weather information from the Department of Disaster Management and other sources.

After storms, he added, residents should stay home at least until the roads are cleared. “We did have people getting stuck in places they had no business in,” Mr. McLean said, adding, “When it’s passed, you have to proceed cautiously.”

This week, he said, a few minor injuries were reported as well, though none required hospitalisation to his knowledge.

“When you have a lot of mud, you have people slipping and sliding,” he said. “It’s hard to slip and slide when you’re at home. I’m just saying.”

Climate change

DDM Director Jasen Penn also stressed the importance of preparedness, warning that climate change is expected to bring increasingly frequent periods of intense rain.

“Even though the rainfall may not be for an extended period of time, it’s a lot of rainfall within a short period,” Mr. Penn said, adding, “We could see within the region several other countries having flooding events as well. … It’s a lot of rainfall in the region.”