Some Barbadians living in St Joseph and St Thomas are seeing little to celebrate this May Day, saying they feel as though they have been left out to dry after prolonged water disruptions.
From Shop Hill in St Thomas to Mellows, Spa Hill and Chimborazo in St Joseph, it was woe after woe yesterday as they complained about dry taps and late or infrequent visits from Barbados Water Authority (BWA) tankers.
In Shop Hill, Rosalyn Richards said she and her family have been unable to cook a single pot of food since they lost the water supply last Saturday. Her household, she added, has struggled to do simple things like laundry, and they are depending on fast food, while rationing what is left of a gallon bottle of purified water.
“We have no water and we have to be carrying water to wash the clothes, flush the toilet; it real rough. A vat (BWA tanker) came up once a Monday night and it hasn’t come back since,” she lamented.
A common complaint among residents was the infrequent visits from the vats, which they said arrived around 10 o’clock at night when they were either asleep or getting ready for bed.
Shopkeeper Kenneth Nicholls said it was hard to pin down the tankers when they passed, as the drivers offered little warning.
“You can barely get water and the vats come and drive straight down the road; they don’t even beep. By this time it’s late and people are shut up and they don’t know,” he told the DAILY NATION.
Nicholls said the water comes back on at a low pressure around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., but many people would miss the chance to collect some before the outages resumed at 6 o’clock.
“Just last night [Wednesday] it came on while I was sleeping. We tried to collect and store as much as we could but by 6 o’clock it was gone and there was no water,” he added.
Retiree Marva Downie, who resides in Shop Hill Terrace, said adequate water supply has been a persistent problem in the area for over 20 years. There were highs and lows, she recalled, but said things had worsened since the start of April.
“From Sunday, our pipes were off. You might get a trickling about 2 or 3 o’clock on mornings and by 6 o’clock when people ready to go to work, there’s no water.”
The 73-year-old said she was becoming increasingly frustrated by the situation, exemplified by the previous night when a water tanker came around 10 p.m. as she and her husband were preparing for bed. She said it stayed for less than 15 minutes, giving them a very narrow window in which to collect water.
Eleanor Thompson said that better communication was needed.
“We need to be told when we’re going to be out of water; not getting up for the day and finding out that there’s no water and we have to do without,” she said.
As a farmer, Thompson tends to her garden as well as sheep and chickens, but the water outages, coupled with the dry conditions, have placed a strain on her operation.
“It’s normally an annual thing where we don’t get water, but then the water comes on when we’re sleeping so we don’t know. I have a 1 000-gallon tank in the yard but I don’t want to use all that water. So I have to nip at it.
“Anytime the vat passes, I will fill up a can for me and a few buckets there, but that is gone in about two days, so I’m in limbo,” she said.
In Chimborazo, Joyann Hurdle said she has been without flowing water for nearly four months.
“They need to do something about it. Even if the pipes aren’t running, the vat men can come and give you a little water. You know what is five days without water?” she asked in exasperation.
“I called on Monday. I called Tuesday. I call yesterday (Wednesday), and then called again when I got home, but no tanker never came out. A tanker went in Mellows three times on Tuesday and no one ever came back to Chimborazo.
Three trips to standpine
“This is really bad and I’m a bad asthmatic. If the standpipe is running, I make three trips to it a day because the sun is hot, and then I will start wheezing really hard. I leave home at 4:30 on mornings, so by the time I get back home it’s no time to go anywhere to bring back water. I’m not a person that complains, but this is really hard,” she added.
In Melvin Hill, some residents said the water had been off for a month.
Orlando Carrington said he has to travel to Bathsheba, also in St Joseph, periodically to collect water from any running standpipes.
“Sometimes we have to leave here, and if we have a friend with a vehicle, we have to go all up to Bathsheba to get water just so that we can bathe our skin or have some drinking water, or water to cook food for our children.
“The water comes back at 3 a.m. when everybody sleeping, so you have to get up and collect some water, otherwise it is gone by 5 o’clock and then you have nothing. Sometimes the trucks come but they do as people are coming from work, leaving many unable to collect the water they need,” he said.
The BWA was contacted yesterday for comment, but no response was received by press time.
However, in a release on Wednesday, the state agency said it was experiencing low reservoir levels at two of its facilities in St Joseph and St George, resulting in low pressure or water outages in districts in several parishes.
They included Airy Hill, Sugar Hill, Todds Corner, Chimborazo, Fruitful Hill, Church Gap Clifton Hill, Clifton Tenantry, Coconut Grove, Lammings, Braggs Hill, Spa Hill and Bissex in St Joseph; and Proute, Forty Acres, White Hill Tenantry, Vaucluse Tenantry, Shop Hill, Grand View, Christie Village, Dukes Tenantry, Welches and Applewhaites in St Thomas.
“The Authority will make every effort to help persons in the affected districts via tanker while the problem persists,” it added, while apologising “for the inconvenience these service disruptions may cause”. (JRN)
