CALABAR, Trelawny — National Water Commission (NWC) Acting Community Relations Manager for the Western Division Aubyn Green leaned on the Bible as he sought to calm flaring tempers at a tense community meeting in Trelawny, Wednesday night, promising residents of Calabar and Hatfield left without piped water since Hurricane Melissa that “deliverance will come”. The assurance came during an NWC outreach meeting at the Assemblies of Holiness Church. Irate customers served by the Dornoch Treatment Plant made it clear that months without the commodity had pushed their patience to the limit.
Some argued the prolonged outage had even hampered efforts to extinguish a house destroyed by fire Saturday night. As frustration mounted, Green said, “We have heard your cry, and just like the children of Israel when they were in Egypt in bondage... the Lord heard their cry, and deliverance came.” He explained that the Category 5 hurricane extensively damaged the Dornoch facility.
“We have suffered significant damage to that facility, to include the access bridge, which was washed away. So it rendered that facility inaccessible,” he said. Green said with its engineers unable to safely access the damaged treatment plant, the NWC used drones to do an assessment.
He explained that the NWC has since designed a replacement bridge with assistance from the National Works Agency, since bridge construction is outside the water company’s expertise. The bridge design has been approved and is moving to emergency procurement, Green said, underscoring that the structure must be rebuilt before repairs to the treatment plant can begin, as access to the facility depends on it. Councillor Fabian “Fabo” Davis (People’s National Party, Duncans Division) addresses residents at the Assemblies of Holiness Church in Calabar, Trelawny, Wednesday night.
(Photo: Horace Hines) “What I’m going to do now is to take all the truck water requests because we’re going to be trucking to you by or before Monday for the first time, after which we are going to develop the trucking schedule so you know when we’re coming,” he said. Residents were asked to submit their account and contact numbers so they could be notified when trucks were heading into the community.
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