City pumps, sluices operating to reduce flooding brought on heavy rainfall

The engineer responsible for the drainage network in Georgetown, Rasheed Kellman on Friday said the city pumps are operational, helping local authorities to tackle water build up amid expected, prolonged rainfall.

According to the Hydrometeorological Service- Guyana, rainfall is expected over a 36 hours- period as of Friday. Prolonged rainfall on Thursday night into Friday morning already flooded several areas.

During a phone interview with the News Room, Kellman said the doors for sluices were opened on Friday to allow the flow of water out of the city.

He also said the pumps will become operationalised during the afternoon to remove residual water.

“We can safely say all the pumps are working except two pumps are down right now. The one at Princes Street… and persons are fixing the one at River View, they have a little mechanical problem. Soon as the doors close all the pumps will be up and kicking. We have Liliendaal also working and Kitty also working,” the engineer said.

He said the rainfall is saturated due to the ongoing weather and pointed out that waters from the East Coast is also flowing downward to Georegtown and getting into the City canals, causing further build up.

“We have systems in place but the volume of water that the door does normally take out is significant compared to the pumps,” he said.