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The furious
Ocean that
knocks on our front door
Report for Sunday October 16th 2005:
Huge vicious waves brought on by annual spring tides and
storm activities in other parts of the Atlantic brought home the reality that
Guyana is in danger of being swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean. I watched in
amazement and with the realisation that this business of global warming is no
longer a joke and indeed it will only be a matter of time before Guyanese have
to really think seriously of moving further inland as the rising level of the
Atlantic and other oceans threaten to override the tiny sea defenses that keep
many nations like Guyana from being totally flooded.
Waves
bashed forcefully over the seawalls that is supposed to keep the hundreds of
billions of gallons of seawater at bay, huge waves too high for the wall to
contain simply slammed into and over the tiny wall that serves as our only
barrier to the mighty Atlantic ocean. I had to take cover numerous times as the
waves seemed intent of drenching me even more than I already was, by the time I
had left, I was totally soaked and I was hoping that my cameras will survived
this ordeal.
Fellow
Guyanese, for the first time in my life, I suddenly realised that we
indeed live way below the level of the sea, what I saw this afternoon looked a lot
more than just six feet, the photos below tell their own story. Bryan Mackintosh
Report for Monday October 17th:
Huge waves continues to rock the coastal belt of Guyana, reports
reaching us indicates that large sections of the seawall defense
system on the West Coast of Demerara has been breached and as such
flooding communities backing the seawall. We also have reports of
water breaching the sea defense at Mon Repos and LBI on the East Coast
of Demerara. Residents north of the East Coast highway in these
villages had some 2 feet of water in their bottom flats. Squatters who
occupy lands close to the seawall felt the full force of the waves as
many of their makeshift houses were knocked down. These unusually high
tides are expect to last for the next three to four days.
Report for Friday October 21st:
The high tides that were expected on Thursday October 20th thankfully did not
materialize and villagers close to the collapsed sections of the west bank
seawalls breathed a sign of relief as they struggled to bring a sense of
normalcy back to their lives. The Works Ministry has deployed emergency repair
crews to sandbag the sections of the sea defense that were damaged by the
unusually high tides that had wrecked havoc just a few days ago. On the East
Coast of Demerara, the door of the koker at Triumph that had been smashed open
by the heavy waves was being worked on and a new door is expected to be
installed shortly. Villages close to the seawalls had experienced a bit of
flooding earlier this week but are now drained and dry. Work to repair the
damaged sections of the sea defense is expected to start shortly.
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Photos below were
taken on Monday October 17th, 2005 |
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| Water splashed
over the wall and onto the east Coast Highway |
These loose
blocks form the barrier between us and the mighty Atlantic |
They do appear
to be insufficient, don't they? |
In the old days
the white people built a solid wall, we natives just put some loose blocks |
Do you think
that maybe this section needs some work? what do you think would happen if
the waves moved those blocks? |
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| Onlookers
taking an up close look |
and running
when the sea attacks |
Karen and
friend from Cummings Lodge came out to see the fury of the waves |
This mud wall
was put together a few weeks ago, the water can be seen splashing over |
Ducking form
the many splashes all afternoon |
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| Standing
minding their own business |
And then a huge
waves breaks at the very back of them |
The water
calming down at around 7pm |
The Police
diverting traffic as the water was too much on the road for driving |
The traffic
build up was evident also along David St in Kitty. |
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Photos below were
taken on Sunday October 16th, 2005 |
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Shots taken on the West Coast of Demerara as
waves crash over the seawall |
These waves simply pounded the sea defense and
broke away huge portions. |
This is how the seawall on the West Coast of
Demerara looked after the the
attack from the waves |
In Georgetown, water splashed over the seawall
and onto the road |
Georgetown |
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Not business as
usual for these seawall venders |
The waves
crashed over the wall and totally soaked this guy a few seconds later |
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| Debris washed
over the wall |
Venders unable
to go to their usual spots. |
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Huge waves like
this one were constantly overtopping the wall |
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The junction
outside of the UG road |
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Just a few
loose rocks serves as the seawall in this section |
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waves here at the UG junction were not as pounding as those just a few
meters up the road |
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This section of
the seawall area was worked on just a few weeks ago, -> |
it looked
as if they just backed the area up with a mud wall |
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Guyanese will
be Guyanese, people swimming even as the waves bashed them |
They are lucky
that this is a somewhat calm area, doing this would be impossible just 200
meters up the seawall. |
This is the
Nasa satellite photo for Guyana this evening. Oct 16 |
This was the
scene in Trinidad at the famous Maracas Beach as they too experienced heaves
waves yesterday.
click 4 story |
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