- Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer
Marie Edwards of Rocky Point, Clarendon, scoops up water from a ditch.
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
WINSTON CRAWFORD tiptoes expertly on jagged stones that lead to the demolished homes he and his family shared in the Cays section of the Rocky Point village in Clarendon.
His two-minute traipse through swamp-like conditions ends at the shaky one-room house occupied by his 75-year-old bedridden mother. Snugly wrapped in blankets, the frail woman stares blank-faced at her visitors, oblivious to her son's distressing tale as she is to her damp surroundings.
"A the first time mi ever experience anything like this. Me'd a neva like face it again," said Winston as he and his three older brothers rummaged through the remnants of the three one-bedroom houses built and issued by the philantropist Mahfood family two years ago. Winston is the youngest of the four Crawford brothers and, like most residents of Rocky Point, earn their living from fishing.
MORE STRESS
His sun-bleached hair and weather-beaten features belie his 30 years; he faced even more stress on the night of September 10 when Hurricane Ivan first flexed its category four muscles. The wooden structures of three of the four Crawford homes could not withstand the hurricane's powerful thrusts or flooding from the coastline which is just a stone's throw from the village. It was two days after the Government announced plans to permanently relocate residents from flood-prone areas like Rocky Point, saying it has become too expensive to restore these communities after being hit by a natural disaster.
On Friday, Minister of Land and Environment, Dean Peart, ordered a cease and desist order against persons who resumed construction on new homes in Portland Cottage where eight persons lost their lives in Ivan-related incidents. He also said Govern-ment had not identified alternative sites where families would re-locate.
Winston Crawford says he is ready to move on from the place he was born. "If dem can get a better place fi wi, wi will go. No problem," he told The Sunday Gleaner. That was the consensus Friday among inhabitants of Rocky Point which, like nearby Portland Cottage, was put to the sword by Hurricane Ivan. The village is still without electricity and water is slowly returning. Some concrete-built homes survived the Ivan onslaught but throughout the community, there are flattened homes, houses without roofs and persons depressed by the Hiroshima-like setting.
Among the forlorn is Madge 'Big Ma' Davis, a lifelong resident of Rocky Point and mother of eight. She was forced to seek shelter at the Rocky Point Community Centre after the hurri-cane tore off the roof of her six-bedroom home, destroying furniture and personal belongings. "When mi come down the Saturday morning mi meet all some a mi tings a wash a come down. Mi lose a lotta weight and mi blood pressure start go up, and mi cry all the time," said the buxom 60-year-old. "People sey mi nuffi cry but mi cyaan help it."
WILLING TO GO
It is the second time that 'Big Ma's' home has been at the receiving end of an hurricane; Hurricane Gilbert in September, 1988 was the first. She says she's willing to go but does not have the last word on the matter.
"Mi haffi hear wha' mi husband sey 'cause him is the man of the house," she said.
Two weeks after Ivan's catastrophic surge, affected residents of south Clarendon are still in the dark as to the extent of assistance they will receive from Government.
Danville Walker, head of the recently-formed Office of National Reconstruction (ONR), toured damaged areas throughout the south coast Thursday and is expected to make an announcement on the re-location of residents in Portland Cottage and Rocky Point this week.
