When residents in some parts of St George and Christ Church turned on their taps Friday night, they were frustrated by the trickle they received.
These low-pressure issues were caused by a rupture to the large-diameter main located at the Turnpike, Carmichael Road, St George, affecting surrounding areas such as The Mount, Ellerton, Carmichael, Bulkeley Close, Buttals Tenantry, Boarded Hall, Watts Village, as well as Edey Village, Frere Pilgrim and St David’s in Christ Church.
In response, the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) turned off the water on the main early yesterday morning and dispatched a crew to conduct repairs.
When the Sunday Sun visited the site around 12:50 p.m. yesterday, the workers were awaiting the arrival of a coupling to attach the seven-inch main. By 5:40 p.m., repairs to the large-diameter main were completed, according to a statement released by the BWA, which added that customers should expect a gradual return to normal water pressure.
Prior to the fix, BWA customers in the nearby areas confirmed some restoration of service. One shopkeeper at Watts Village said the water pressure was gradually returning.
Resident Shakeila Kirton praised the quick response.
At Boarded Hall, St George, the Cornerstone Nursing and Retirement Home was negatively affected by the low water pressure, according to manager Deborah Thorpe.
‘Slows productivity’ “It’s terrible . . . it’s awful. It slows up productivity and the old people have to wait longer for the washing machine to wash their clothes. If you have to clean them up, you have to wait for a bowl of water or shower. It’s not good at all,” she said.
For Frere Pilgrim resident
Robert Ambrose, a tanker saved him.
“Water truck came about a half hour ago [11:50 a.m.] and I collected two buckets of water but, truthfully, we don’t get water issues around this side unless it’s an emergency or an outage . . . but it was an emergency so you can’t do anything about that,” he said.
While the impact of the ruptured main placed a burden on some St George residents, people in the district of Shop Hill, St Thomas, were also dealing with low water pressure and outages brought on by another issue which the BWA had reported earlier in the week.
Resident Ashley Lloyd said the outages were intermittent.
“The water will sometimes go out completely and the pressure will be very low to the point where you would get enough water to wash your hands but you can’t wash clothes. It’s not usable and it goes out more than once a day,” she explained.
Kenneth Nicholls, who was at a shop with a group of friends, said the water situation was not good.
“The water issue real bad. The trucks don’t come around to give you water when the water is off and I have to clean a lot of chickens,” he said. (JRN)
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