Residents of the historic town of Old Road have become accustomed to coping with regular interruptions to their daily lives occasioned by inclement weather. The location of the town is in an area where the topography is striking.
It is adjacent to a natural bay that has steadily over the course of three centuries eaten its way almost to the base of the hillside above it. It has two rivers; the Franklands River and the Wingfield River, which run permanently in the higher elevations. It is nestled at the base of the Wingfield Mountain which is hydrologically significant and makes the area a watershed on account of high annual rainfall averages.
The Old Road bay is probably the feature that exercises the most influence over the lives of residents. The hillside above it is unstable and prone to mass wasting. It has been the site of several mudslides and rockfalls and has a hazard designation. The road along the bay is frequently blocked either by the movement of the hillside or the sea undermining the road. Old Road is also prone to flooding. Station Street becomes a water course whenever there is heavy rain and often residents are marooned temporarily by the deluge of water, silt, rocks and other debris that rush down the street.
The natural features of Old Road are well known to the government generally and those in the relevant departments of water, sustainable development and the environment in particular. In fact the area was designated a protected zone under the OPAAL project that aims to protect the environment and the rural way of life. However, despite knowing the vulnerabilities of Old Road the government has embarked on destructive policies in the area. Specifically a large swath of land has been cleared of its vegetative cover and left exposed in this environmentally sensitive area. The clearing is ostensibly for prospective housing but the reality is that the inclement weather on Monday 19th meant that all the actual houses in the path of a torrential mudslide were befouled when the cleared section of the hillside collapsed under the weight of the saturated soil.
Without the grass and trees, which every schoolchild knows, anchors the soil in place nearly four feet of mud washed down Station Street an into homes, businesses and government buildings in its path. The Island Main Road was blocked as the debris ran its course to the sea. What if a hurricane hits St. Kitts this year? The simple answer is that nature will do its damage but manmade problems would cause a real catastrophe in Old Road.
The storm on Monday gave an example of the potential havoc that can occur and must be mitigated against in Old Road and its environs. Some form of defense needs to be erected to stabilize the hillside but more importantly serious thought and environmental considerations must become more prominent than political expedience in physical planning decisions. The weather exposed the mess that the government has made in Old Road. Let’s hope that they take note and do something to protect the houses that are there right now rather than be so concerned about those that may be there some time in the future.
