Weather

We had a pleasant and beautiful Saturday in Negril.

Got to the Pickled Parrot by 10:30 or so. Spent more time than usual taking in her amenities. We snorkeled a bit. Drank a few buckets of Red Stripe. Talked to the locals. Even paid one of them to perform a one and a half off of the rope swing. Although my first attempt at the rope and bar was relatively successful, my second was not, and I actually hurt myself on the third. Well, nothing ten kilos and twenty years ago would not have cured.

From there, we drove to Cosmos, on the beach, for a stroll up to the trampoline at Margaritaville. A nice walk, indeed, once you run the gauntlet of higglers and dealers.

“Smoke?”

“Gram?”

“Girl?”

By the time we were through with it all, we were exhausted. I was sore and sunburned, and rued the drive home, burned back wincing at the abrasive seats as we rumbled over the eighty kilometer pothole which is the highway, fearing my arms would not function at that next critical shift. We got home after dark, and barely made it until 21:00 before the eyelids summoned me to bed.

Sunday morning was cloudy, a rarity for the island. The clouds soon turned to rain. All right, we sometimes do get morning showers, but these did not seem to be letting up any time soon. I was beginning to think this rainy day was a good thing. I was still sore and sunburned and I could use a day in the shade, as opposed to wasting the day at Doctor’s Cave Beach as we had planned.

I went back and forth for a while here. Soothing shade or stunning snorkeling? Soothing or stunning? Hmmm...

Ultimately, the choice was not mine. The rains continued for the entire day. There would be no beach. No lime squishies. No patties and Red Stripes for lunch.

Just as well. I was still sore.

Hank called in the evening. It had rained all day from Montego Bay to Negril, and one abutment for the temporary bridge at Maggotty had washed away. There would be no way to get to the camp until it was repaired. I told him that I would try to be on location in the morning, at least to gather data and work on a solution. That did not happen.

From what I have been told, there are three seasons in Jamaica - wet, dry, and tourist. July through October is wet. Quite coincidentally, this correlates with the hurricane season. Since we moved here in July, all we have known is the wet season. I thought I had it mostly figured out. Every second or third day it would rain. Usually in the afternoon. Usually for an hour. Then, Ra would make his reappearance (“and there was much rejoicing”). This is really a great way to maintain the lushness. A good soaking followed by some hot.

Most often, the rains would be scattered across the north coast. Some days, we would get rain at the camp and the wives would be dry as they lounged by the pool. Some days, rain would scatter elsewhere from Negril to Ochi. Rare was the event which would deposit precipitation across the entire north coast at the same time. Even more rare is the heavy event which covers the entire north coast for the entire day. That rare day was Sunday.

As could be expected here, there is no way to estimate the return frequency of the day’s event. Let us just stick with the “rare” thing. Eventually, I did make it to work, but not the next day, and only after government and contractor crews had reestablished passable roadways from home to camp.

The flooding and associated problems were widespread. In Reading, the road up to Anchovy had become the primary drainage course for runoff from the surrounding hills. The flows had conveyed hundreds of cubic meters of cobbles, rubble, and rock down to the A1, and deposited them half a meter thick in some places. The extent of this deposition was over the entire roadway for a distance of a few hundreds of meters. Some of the rocks were as large as three hundred millimeters in diameter, although most were in the fifty to one hundred millimeter range.

Outside of Unity Hall, at Spring Garden, flows over the roadway had washed out portions of the seaside lane in numerous locations.

The road to Unity Hall itself had turned to mud and washed down onto the highway, turning it totally impassible for a time. This was as far as I made it on Monday, where I sat for almost an hour before turning around and calling it quits. I leave plenty of work on the laptop for this very reason. I would have waited a little longer, just out of curiosity, but I spoke to a man who had walked down to the blockage and did not sound very encouraging with his report.

The Jamaicans lack both the experience and the discipline to deal with the intricacies of lane sharing. Too often, if there is just one lane, drivers will approach from both sides and stop in the middle. No sooner is this situation resolved than it occurs again. Of course, the public works people have no idea how to conduct a traffic control exercise. Rarely do you see red flags and green flags manipulated by the flagmen. More often, you will see a red oilcan and a leafy branch. Sometimes you will see a green leafy branch with red flowers. Jah only knows what this is supposed to represent. The cops are no help at all. They will sit in traffic with the rest of us, then drive through the trouble spot and continue going to lunch.

On the west side of Hopewell, a culvert headwall was washed away, due to the force of flows over the highway, impacting from the roadside. Again, mud and cobbles rendered the roadway impassible.

In Sandy Bay, another flow of rocks and mud washed down a concrete lined channel and lodged in the town’s largest culvert, plugging it, and forcing the rock filled flow onto the pavement, resurfacing the roadway with mud and aggregate and flooding every building and structure along the main road half a klick to each side of the culvert. Except for another huge event two weeks ago, this had not occurred since Gilbert thrashed the island in the late 1980's.

At Maggotty, one of the abutments went out to sea, and the bridge tried to follow. The first day I saw this temporary structure, I wrote a memo stating my opinion regarding its lack of capacity. It still failed, leading me to believe that memoranda leave something to be desired when asked to provide adequate flood conveyance.

Prior to its failure, the reduced capacity of the channel through the bridge forced floodwater to back up above the bridge, overtopping the levees, flooding houses, almost drowning cattle, and submerging the driveway to the skills training center (they had to hire a row boat to get the students and staff to the road).

Fortunately, the temporary bridge was sturdy, and soon welded to a couple of hastily driven temporary piles, so a new abutment could be quickly constructed beneath it. Fortunately, no one died, protecting my safety record. Fortunately, the effects were widespread, so people are not looking for our specific heads on a communal platter. Hopefully, the improvements we are making, once they are complete, will work to alleviate these affects.
Fortunately and hopefully.

Beside this, it all irie.