St James Municipal Corporation says it is actively working on a disaster plan to mitigate the effects of flooding and other natural disasters on the parish.

Deputy Mayor of Montego Bay Councillor Richard Vernon made the disclosure at a Jamaica Information Service ( JIS) think tank held at the municipal corporation in Montego Bay on Monday.

Several sections of the parish experienced major flooding, infrastructure damage, and land slippage from heavy rains, which impacted western parishes over the weekend.

“We are actively working on our parish disaster plan, which would incorporate an evacuation plan. The evacuation plan would entail an alarm system that would put the town on alert to say this is happening,” said Vernon.

“So, if we are having heavy showers and the water starts to rise and it reaches a certain level, then, immediately, a siren goes off and the town is alerted so that you have to evacuate these areas and these are the areas you should not enter,” he noted.

He said that the evacuation plan will also incorporate zonal committees to be established in different communities across the parish.

He told JIS that these committees, which will be replicas of the parish disaster committee, will deal with disaster risk mitigation in the different sections of St James.

“Together, they [zonal committees] collectively make up the disaster plan for the parish, which feeds into the national disaster plan. So we are actively working on it, and I believe that once we get all these things in place we will be better able to manage any disaster that comes our way and be able to mitigate the risk,” Vernon said.

In the meantime, he said that the corporation has already deployed teams to address problems associated with roads and drainage due to the flood rains.

“Based on observation, we would have noted that South Gully overflowed, but the water subsided shortly after, leaving [some debris]. As it relates to North Gully, that didn’t overflow at the lower end, but there were some sections along North Gully where persons were affected,” Vernon said.

“I know, for a fact, that some road surfaces have been damaged based on what we observed when we did a tour of the downtown area. We had land slippage at King Street, but that has been cleared as of 8:00 am this morning [yesterday[. Other major blockage was reported but they are being cleared as well,” he added.

Vernon said, too, that the corporation continues to carry out further damage and risk assessment of the parish. He indicated that a drain-cleaning and de-bushing programme will be among the primary focus as the entity gears up for the Christmas season.