St. James Prepared as Hurricane Season Peaks

The St. James Municipal Corporation says it is prepared to deal with any eventualities should the parish be impacted by a tropical cyclone during the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season.

The season, which officially began on June 1 and will end November 30, generally experiences its peak from mid-August to the end of September.

During this period, conditions are ideal for strong and quick-moving tropical storms, hurricanes and depressions.

Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Homer Davis, told JIS News that the Municipal Corporation is in a state of readiness and the relevant agencies are on alert to provide emergency assistance as required.

The Mayor said that shelter managers have received adequate training in shelter management and first aid.

“We have also equipped our shelter managers with the necessary tools, for example, raincoats, flashlights, waterboots and a number of other things that they will need in case they have to respond to managing their shelters,” he noted.

He informed that drain cleaning has been ongoing, with extensive attention given to the critical channels in June.

“The Minister of Local Government and Community Development (Hon. Desmond McKenzie) has committed to each councillor in each municipality one million dollars per year to assist in cleaning critical drains, so I would say that most of our critical drains are in a state to accommodate a regular flow,” he noted.

Mayor Davis appealed to citizens to practise proper waste disposal habits and desist from using gullies as dump sites, in order to prevent flooding and environmental pollution.