Some residents in St Andrew have been grappling with severe water outages for the past week, due to ongoing work by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) to replace the mains along the Cattlewash section of the Ermie Bourne Highway.
In a statement last week Monday, the BWA advised that districts in St Joseph and St Andrew – such as Cattlewash, Dark Hole, Shorey Village, Morgan Lewis, Walkers and Belleplaine – would experience outages or low pressure as a result of a rupture. The statement also assured that water tanker crews would assist residents and businesses wherever possible.
In an update yesterday, the BWA, while apologising for the inconvenience and thanking customers for their patience and understanding, stated that the laying of the mains was nearing completion and water tanker crews would continue to make rounds in affected areas.
When the DAILY NATION arrived in Shorey Village recently, some residents were already gathered by the BWA’s water trucks waiting to fill up buckets and bottles.
Some residents maintained a calm disposition while others showed frustration over the outage and the distance they had to travel to source water.
There were also residents with a cane in hand, hoping to get water for their household, with help from their neighbours who carried the load.
A frustrated Arrundel Chandler, who has a disability, explained the difficulty he had in sourcing water as the route for the truck to travel to his home was deemed impassable. He has lived in the area for 69 years and said whenever the water truck was in the neighbourhood, he would struggle with his cane to get on the main road to get water.
“The truckman said he can’t get up in there because the truck doesn’t have enough locks. Yesterday [Monday], I had to ask the small truck to come by me because I live alone and I’m crippled and he didn’t come back. I have to wait until everybody stronger than me get water,” he said.
The outage has had a significant impact on Chandler as he went some days without showering and barely having a meal.
Reflecting on the current outage, he recalled a time when the water went off for about three weeks and he endured similar hardships back then as he did now.
Another resident, Judy Jordan, who travelled with a cane, said she was greatly impacted by the outage last week as she had to minimise the amount of water used as she did not know when the next supply would come. She said the lingering issue was having enough water as it went off in the morning and came back later in the day.
“What I could do? It ain’t good at all. When you cooking and you have to wash the dishes, that is what causes the water to waste. If I didn’t have to cook or wash, the water would last longer,” she said.
However, she commended the BWA for their efforts in alerting residents about the outage, allowing them to better prepare, and offering assistance where needed.
Wendy Chandler, another Shorey Village resident, admitted she did not manage well with the outage as she suffered with arthritis and found it difficult to travel from her home to the main road to collect water from the truck.
She said her water had been off since last Sunday and she had a drum at her home that needed to be filled.
This was not the first time Chandler had experienced a water outage. In 2021, a burst main resulted in
a month-long outage, a period she described as very rough.
Chandler lamented that it was hard for her to walk that distance to get water because the truck was not able to get directly to her home to afford her easy access to water.
Cooking is one daily routine that has been compromised due to the water shortage as she has to utilise recipes that do not require much water.
Another truck was making its rounds in Walkers when the DAILY NATION was in the area as residents stood on the sidewalks and in the road to receive water.
BWA truck operators Derick Waithe and Allan Straker said they would touch communities such as Walkers, Bellplaine Housing Area and Babylon Road.
One resident in Walkers who asked to remain anonymous said she had been without water since last Monday and only received water on Saturday when the water truck from the BWA passed through the neighbourhood to relieve residents of their water woes.
Having lived in the area for more than 40 years, she said she usually didn’t experience any issues with sourcing water but she sprang into action when she was alerted to the outage by BWA on the news.
“The water does be off, not like it is now. It will go off in the morning and come back in the evening,” she said.
She remains badly affected by the outage because she has been unable to carry out her day-to-day duties as accustomed.
“That block off a lot. What you could do? You couldn’t wash as freely and clean as you should and the hardest thing is that I couldn’t use the washing machine because I don’t have a tank, but you have to try to make ends meet,” she said.
She said the truck usually came twice a day – morning and evening – to deliver water in the neighbourhood.
Charles Knight has been living in Walkers for about seven years and experienced water issues off and on for the last five years. He said he became aware of the outage after hearing the announcement from BWA and decided to take action by storing water in buckets and bottles outside his home, which prevented him from being severely impacted.
Another resident, Karen Watson, said her water stopped running about midday last week Monday. She had grown accustomed to water outages as she grew up in the area, adding that this recent one had no significant impact on her because she had a water tank and water stored at home.
“Over the years we would have gotten our own tank and we have buckets and bottles of water that we keep stored up. It’s been a while but we are always prepared and with hurricane season these things tend to come up but we are persons who always have water.”
With the water trucks from BWA occasionally passing through the community, she always has water because she is often home alone during the day.
Watson’s sister Sherry-Ann also said that she, too, was not negatively impacted by the water outage because she shared a water tank with her sister and they never overused it in case they really needed it when an outage occurred.
She has been living in the area for all her life and said having a vehicle made hunting for water easier. She used water from the truck for household cleaning and utilised store-bought water for drinking. (AJ)
