Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Eight-month-old Jordaine Knowles holds on tightly to mother Ingrid Knowle's blouse as she stands outside a house in which some 13 family members - spanning three generations - lived. The house, situated in Manchioneal in Portland, was one of several in the parish that were destroyed by the powerful winds of Tropical Storm Gustav on Thursday.

Howard Campbell, Sunday Gleaner Writer

AFTER RIDING out four hurricanes in ndustry Village, businessman Leonard Davis thought he had seen everything. That is, until the rural St Andrew district felt the force of Tropical Storm Gustav last Thursday.

"I've never experienced anything like this before. It was awful!" said an aminated Davis on the muddied porch of his grocery store. "But yuh know, God is good."

Davis has lived with his wife Elizabeth in an adjoining house for almost 20 years. They said they accommodated several neighbours Thursday night when Gustav's gales threatened to demolish their homes.

Elizabeth Davis said the ordeal was as frightening as hurricanes Ivan and Dean, which struck Jamaica in 2004 and 2007, respectively.

"I was really afraid," she told The Sunday Gleaner.

Industry Village is one of several areas in the constituency of East Rural St Andrew badly affected by Gustav. Skyline Drive, one of Gordon Town's main arteries to Kingston, was blocked, so, too, the path from Industry Village to Gordon Town, which up to noon yesterday, was clogged by debris from landslides.

Landslides

The Jack's Hill Road in the constituency of North East St Andrew was also blocked by a landslide. Easton Ellis, who lives with his wife and four children beneath the hillside area where the earth gave way, said things got scary for a time on Thursday night when Gustav's winds were at their fiercest.

"Mi a tell yuh, if di rain neva stop, it (water, dirt) woulda come right in pon wi," said Ellis, laughing nervously.

A tractor contracted to the National Works Agency (NWA) was in its second day of removing the debris just before noon. Persons walking down the hill had to evade trees and silt, while cars going in the opposite direction were waved back by workmen.

Yesterday, the NWA's communications manager, Stephen Shaw, said its workmen had cleared 30 of the 180 roads blocked by refuse from Gustav.

He said the Fern Gully main road, which links St Ann to St Catherine and the north coast, had been cleared, so, too, roads in the border parishes of Manchester, St Elizabeth and Westmoreland.

The bridge connecting Harbour View to St Thomas, however, was still incapacitated. Shaw said several roads in St Mary also had been severely damaged.