The Guyana
Flood Website
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Report for January 26th 2006. Mahaicony The first stop on our road trip for January 26th 2006 was at the seawall at the junction of the East Coast Highway and the University of Guyana road. What caught out attention was the constant flow of water onto the highway making this section of the road slippery and dangerous. We were unable to track the source of the water which was streaming onto the highway at a fair pace. We came to the conclusion that the water must be coming from the uneven surface of the mud dam that serves as our only defense against the might Atlantic Ocean at this junction. Maybe it would be a good idea for the authorities to inspect this budding defect before it become a bigger eyesore and problem. We moved off and headed up the East Coast to see firsthand the flooding in Mahaica, Mahaicony and Abary. Since mid December, the residents of Mahaica and Mahaicony have been severely affected by floodwater and life in this once striving farming community has grinded to a halt. As we turned into Mahaicony, we saw little evidence of the flooding that we had heard of but as we drove deeper into the backlands, the floodwaters suddenly appeared and it was a stark reminder of the flooding that had engulfed the East Coast of Demerara during January of 2005. Everywhere you looked, seemed covered with water. Homes were flooded out, businesses were closed and the people had a look of total frustration and despair on their faces. They have been under water for some seven weeks now and the water is showing no sign of going away. Reason for the present Mahaicony flooding: Because of the dangerously high water level in the East Coast Conservancy and the authorities fearing that the dam of the conservancy would break unless this water was released, the National Drainage and Irrigation Board made the decision to open the Maduni sluice which is located on the Mahaica River. As such hundreds of billions of gallons of water was diverted into the already full to capacity Mahaica river. Unable to take off this quantity of water, the silted up Mahaica river in turn emptied into the farmlands of Mahaicony, in the process wrecking havoc on this once striving farming community. Farmers of Mahaicony are questioning why it is that the drainage board kept the huge amount of water in the conservancy when they knew that heavy rainfall was expected. Farmers are of the opinion that had the drainage board kept the conservancy at a much lower level, it would have been able to take off the excess water and with constant blowing of the water at Land Of Canaan 5 door sluices, they could have been spared this spate of flooding. It must be noted that there has been constant heavy rainfall in the highlands, the water from areas such as Soesdyke and further inland flows naturally into the East Coast water conservancy. The EC water conservancy runs from Mahaica to the Land of Canaan 5 door slice on the East Bank of Demerara. Most of the water that Georgetown residents receive through their taps come from this very East Coast conservancy. Guysuco and East Coast farmers also utilize this water to irrigate their crops.
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