Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) wants the mandatory disclosure of disaster zones in order to discourage human development in those areas.

Speaking recently with The Sunday Gleaner, Ronald Jackson, director general of the ODPEM, said developers who deliberately built houses or sold land located in disaster zones to unsuspecting buyers should be brought to book. "There are persons who sell or develop land that is in flood plains or prone to other hazards, and persons buy these properties without even knowing," stated Jackson.

The disaster management official is also agitating for the imposition of stringent laws to prohibit human development close to watersheds and riverbeds. He further proposes even stricter laws to guard against illegal dumping in gullies and drains, which exacerbates or causes flooding in some areas.

Housing schemes

In recent years, the media have been replete with reports of housing developments transformed into swamps whenever heavy rains lash the island. Among the affected developments are Kennedy Grove Housing Scheme in Clarendon, and Nightingale Grove Housing Scheme in St. Catherine, which were both built in flood-prone areas.

Agreeing with the ODPEM head on the need for stronger disaster prevention legislation, consultant geologist Parris Lyew Ayee Jr. said a significant body of information already existed and was available to policymakers, experts and even the public as to what areas are prone to disasters. Lyew Ayee, along with Rafi Ahmad, head of disaster studies at the University of the West Indies, had conducted research pointing out areas prone to landslides, sea surges and flooding.

"There is a another angle of it that becomes both political and economically difficult. We have people in Kintyre (in St.Andrew) and other places, an obviously flood prone area ... but do these people have anywhere else to go?" argues Lyew Ayee. "Would politicians object to them moving? So, we cannot let the science live in a vacuum..."

Awaiting legislation

Meanwhile, the ODPEM is still awaiting the formulation and passage of legislation to effect mandatory evacuation of disaster threatened communities. The legislation, which was proposed by former Prime Minister, PJ Patterson in 2005, has been two years in the waiting.

Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, Local Government and Environment Minister Dean Peart said he did not know the current status of the legislation, but it was last before the chief parliamentary counsel.

"The Prime Minister had said she would have preferred if we deal with the (evacuation legislation alone), but my [team] don't want to deal with that alone; they want to deal with the whole disaster issue and make one recommendation to deal with everything," explained Peart. "That is the problem we are having, to put everything together in one package."

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com