Seventy-three-yearold Herma Campbell wasn’t going to take any chances.

As soon as water started rising in her yard in the informal community called Dump Land in Annotto Bay last Saturday, she made her way to Annotto Bay High School, where a shelter has been established for people in that section of St Mary in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Matthew.

“We have 36 people inside,” Shelter Manager Patricia Hardy told the Jamaica Observer yesterday. “The majority are from the Dump Land area in the town because they started experiencing flooding from yesterday (Sunday).”

Hardy took the Observer on a tour of shelter where men, women, children, and one caged parrot named ‘Blue’ occupy several classrooms.

While the conditions are not the best, they all said they felt comfortable. However, they had a common complaint — a lack of food.

“Mi need fi eat, because mi a diabetic and mi have tablet fi tek fi mi blood pressure,” said Campbell, who also complained of experiencing joint pains.

Fifty-three-year-old Sandra, who also lives at Dump Land, said she decided to go to the shelter after the rain on Sunday. “It started flooding from about 1:00 pm yesterday. The water was outside my house, but it wasn’t very high, but wi don’t know what later will bring; so we have to evacuate from now,” she said.

Her neighbour, Hadel Campbell, 74, agreed, even as she, too, asked for the authorities to assist them with food.

The sight of 72-year-old Roy Clarke was enough to soften the hardest heart. Unable to walk, Clarke sat with a slouch on a bed supported by chairs. His supplies — a quarter of hard dough bread, one bottle of soda, a small box of milk, two bags of water crackers, a small igloo, a gallon bottle of water, mosquito destroyer, batteries, a transistor radio, change of clothes, and a plastic bag filled with prescription medicine – were placed on three desks beside the bed.

“Mi have a prosate complaint,” he told the

Observer as he reached for the plastic bag to show the tablets. While he had enough to last for the next two days, he was concerned that with the supply dwindling his next doctor’s appointment is October 26.

“A feeling pain. Mi foot swell,” he said.

On the opposite block, Shanique Levers, along with her mother, four children and two stepchildren occupied another classroom.

“Wi alright so far,” she told the Observer.

Levers said she decided to head to the shelter with her family because she was convinced that her house would not remain standing “if the breeze come the right way… But ah better it [the house] gwaan and me and the kids safe”, she said.

Not everyone in Annotto Bay was moved to head to the shelter.

Joyce Brown, who said she has been living at Dump Land for 32 years, explained that, while this was the second time that her house was being flooded, she was fearful that thieves would raid her home if she left.

Her neighbour, Fitzroy Treasure, said he planned to go to the shelter, but he had to first get his children to safety, put his belongings together and cover them.

According to Treasure, his furniture and other household items were damaged when Hurricane Sandy tore his roof off in 2012.

Devon Brown, who built his house on the section of Dump Land known as Black Sand Beach 15 years ago, was retrieving furniture from what was left of the structure when the

Observer arrived.

In his case the structure started weakening from rain in the area a few weeks ago. Sunday’s showers exacerbated the problem.

“The last hurricane pass me here so; only the top come off,” he said in reference to the roof.

“This is the worst,” he added.

Carlos Davis, 21, whose house on Black Sand Beach was flooded, said he was at a loss as to what to do next.

“Mi need some help, enuh, cause right now mi no have no land fi go mek back house,” he lamented.

Asked whether the Member of Parliament had been in touch with them, a very vocal Silene Mittoo said he was “a waste a time”.

She, however, had lots of praise for local representative Norman Dunn. “He’s always here for us… poor people, rich people, anybody at all can count on him,” she said.