good afternoon it's monday november 9 i'm herman green with the midday news
a special welcome if you're watching on onespotmedia.com
more reports of damage and devastation after another weekend of torrential rain
across the island our news team has been on the roads looking at the devastation
we begin with our report of vashon brown who visited the community of shooter's cylinder andro
this morning where the heavy rains caused more damage residents and shooters hill santander are
on edge they say the heavy rains have been making their lives miserable they showed up several
houses which are now buried due to landslides some people have lost all their furniture
others realized the danger a few weeks ago when landslides caused by the heavy rain claimed the
lives of two people in the area so they have since moved out to stay with family and friends
some have also managed to remove almost all their furniture because of fear that more rainfall could
come and undermine their houses we're told that at least eight residents have moved to the benedict's
primary school in centennial for shelter the residents say they want help to relocate
meanwhile kirk wright spoke with a resident on wheeze road in bull bay saint andrew whose home
was flooded by the heavy rains over the weekend he says at least 10 persons have been affected
here we are with a lady from whis road in nine miles bulby what's your name my name is petruna
anderson can you spell it for me oh p-e-t-r-o-n-a all right so um we are aware that a week ago
the river as the residents are telling us birth twice but how is it how is this time
different from the last two times oh well this time the tractor drive on the grind and they use a
chalk i'm talking about it in terms of the damage that has been done this time around damage is it's
rougher than last week very hard it's the first for my living here and i got flooded out already
what is the first i ever seen this first which is devastated terrible terrible because when i got
slaughtered i could run over to my neighbor but my neighbor got so everybody on the road coming
down the stretch that fed up i heard that a little girl was almost got washed away he's my neighbor
while we were on the whole stop uh daddy was on the whole stop trying to fix something
and him tell her to steer but she was up by our uncle and i get to understand and she said let me
see if my uncle she had my uncle uncle jonah in the water picture i should see along come right
down here under my name it's a kid i ain't got to save him too because i'm never going
finally that government says that they're going to declare some areas disaster era so
people move out and don't live there again do you think they should declare this area
disaster era and all of you would need to move out well i don't know where to move and go no
so what i am saying have them clean out and then mine the goalie and get the stone
and everyone today would cooperate and build that basket
you know what a grind or it used to be and if they do that then i think we won't get that flooding
now residents of gordon town in east rural and andrew are calling for a greater focus on their
community following recent heavy rains which have upended their lives this has been exacerbated
following weeks of heavy rains which have caused landslides and a major road breakaway our reporter
anthony log is in the community anthony what can you tell us thank you herman now i'm currently at
a section of the golden town community known as stand-up hill that's just along the gordon town
main road the tone of the residence here is pretty much frustration the residents have had to walk
miles to get in and out of the community and they're telling our news team that it's
tiring it's frustrating and they cannot continue to live like this no i've been here since about 10
o'clock this morning and i've noticed several land slippages uh several breakaways and it's
extremely rough for the residents here no the taxi operators here in the community are
also making much of this situation community members are assisting residents to get across
these areas because as you can imagine residents are extremely fearful that they might fall
and there could be further land slippages in this area so we'll be monitoring the situation here
and we'll provide you with updates in subsequent newscasts until then it's back to you in studio
all right thank you anthony look there in bull bay saint andrew now the in garden town rather
now the jamaica coffee exporters association is calling for the government to declare east ruiz
and andrew and surrounding communities in the blue mountain coffee area at disaster zone heavy rains
over the past two weeks have caused severe damage to the roads in east river saint andrew which is
the home of the jamaica blue mountain coffee last week several landslides occurred along the garden
town main road but on sunday it was worsened as a section of the road collapsed leaving it
impassable to vehicular traffic it's why president of the jamaica coffee exporters association
norman grant has made the call for a disaster zone to be declared this morning i am making
a urgent and urgent call to the government that in cabinet they should approve that
parliament moves a motion tomorrow to declare east rural santa andrew and they surrounding
areas in fact through the extended blue mountain range a disaster zone mr grant says now more than
ever government resources are needed to assist in the redevelopment of the rural road network
following the devastation caused by the rain in those areas what we can do is to implement a
preventative maintenance program that will prevent the recurrence and the reason
for the call for the disaster zone is to allow the government to allocate well-needed resources
to address these concerns he warns that the lack of attention to the rural areas will have
a detrimental impact on the country's economy it has affected the operations of coffee factories
farmers going to the market you know and and it has also affected utilities a number
of these areas i know without um electricity disrupted water supply in the meantime local
government minister desmond mckenzie says about 80 percent of east river saint andrew
has been compromised following the battering from three weeks of consistent showers
he says a proper assessment would have to be done before an area can be declared a disaster zone
and we we cannot only look at issuers and anger alone i know the situation near the extreme
but it is something that we'll have to look at is something that we have been looking at so the
call that he's making is not is not a new call it is something that we have been discussing
at the level of you know the authority to see how best to treat the situation
in israel i would i would agree with him um that we have to to pay some attention now in terms of
how we deal with the infrastructure and issuers in azure in the meantime mr grant says the impact
of the weather conditions has been severe on the country's coffee sector prior to this weekend's
reign we estimate that the loss could be in the region of 100 million dollars which represents
berries falling from trees and so the farmers have lost those trees that has been lost due to
land slippages the increase in the operating costs for the farmers to get to their farms and also
to get to the factories because of black roots spoilage of coffee all of these
has amounted to significant losses for the coffee farmers he however says he
has received a commitment from agriculture minister floyd greene of 80 million dollars
to assist the farmers who have been impacted but despite the assistance the association
president says the extent of the damage is now greater due to the ongoing inclement weather
i would not be surprised to see after evaluation when all of this is settled
that this could move from 100 million dollars to over 200 million dollars
now residents of nine mile bulb bay are literally living on the edge of devastation if
immediate action is not taken to fix a worsening threat in the community because of the rains
now the images show homes slowly eroding away as heavy rains continue to wreak havoc across
the island this morning west sen thomas member of parliament james robinson robertson said and teams
from the national works agency visited the area trying to find a short-term solution you can see
where the river has breached the groin and lower seaforth upper york threatening thousands of lives
what we're going to try and do is identify what we can do immediately to protect lives and to protect
existing infrastructure mr robertson says based on preliminary assessment it's anticipated that
repairs will be costly the budget for what we're looking at is billions and billions
where we have seen and what we have seen in the last 20 years the levels the height of the water
the amount of damage we have never seen this before
and it's time now for a break here on the mid-day
news but please stay with us we have more news when we return
welcome back we're continuing the news
ascent and families in grief following a fiery crash on the queen's highway sunday morning which
killed four of their relatives including a mother who was four months pregnant ocean masters has the
details the identities of the four persons who died in yesterday's fiery two vehicle collision
on the discover bay main road in zintan have been revealed they are 34 year old kadeen howard and
her assist of 14 year old rihanna howard 13 year old jaden mclean and a 32 year old jason gayle
all of gibraltar in monique centen it was reported that shortly before 8 o'clock a toyota feeder was
traveling towards trelloni when the driver lost control of the vehicle it collided with
a mercedes-benz the toyota field up burst into flames rihanna and jaden were flung from the car
while mr gail who was a driver and kadeen howard were trapped firefighters extinguished the blaze
now beatrice brown the mother of kadeem and rihanna told the tvj news on monday
that they were on a trip to visit family members in montego bay when the ordeal happened
i would rather wake up and see them this morning but i can't see them being gone
then gone no more cutting no more rihanna no more jade no more jason i miss them why me who
knows only you jesus no why me miss brown says she has been depressed since she learned of the crash
the drive of the mercedes-benz suffered minor injuries ashane masters tvj news
we go on to news and politics at least one political analyst believes that
the right candidate was elected on saturday to lead the people's national party pnp
prince moore has the details the much anticipated pnp presidential election has come and gone
with mark golding being elected president but questions still linger around this election
chief among them is he the right choice to go up against and your wholeness when the
country goes to the polls in the next five years and there's more than enough time for
uh mark golin to make up any deficit where popularity is concerned but it's awesome
however assistant lecturer in the department of government at the university of the west
indies mona daemon garden believes that should not be the major focus currently he notes that
the issue of disunity within the party since the dr peter phillips porsha simpson miller challenge
needs to be the main focus presently mr gordon noted that if those issues are not addressed they
could be detrimental to the political organization clearly there are raw emotions and the party knows
to spend some time to to reconcile the differences within the party um the the wooden candidate has
said that that is one of his main um objectives moving forward to bring the party back together
um there's a possibility that they may establish a committee with the responsibility for doing so
but certainly that has to be a priority no as to why south east saint and member of parliament lisa
hannah did not find favor with the majority of delegates mr gordon says that is due to
a number of factors including the slim margin of victory in the september 3 general election
there has been some questions about our stewardship of our constituency
for a lot of the voters the the stewardship of our consequence leaves much to be desired
and a lot of persons have said that this the this tourism constituency which was almost lost
to the jamaica labor party in the last election indicates um a deficiency in our leadership on
our people skill so those were question marks i'm surrounding earth mr gordon who was speaking on
tvj's smile jamaica program monday morning noted that mr golding has his work cut out
in bringing together a hurting party which has had a number of internal elections since 2007.
mark golding on saturday received 1740 of the delegates votes compared to lisa hanna's 1444.
prince moore tvj news jamaica's covet 19 case count has increased to 9542
the country recorded 36 new cases of covet 19 yesterday their ages range from 1 to 73 years
trilani recorded the majority of the new cases followed by kingston and saint andrew meanwhile
the country's death toll remains at 221 no covet 19 deaths were recorded yesterday we go on to news
overseas drug maker pfizer on monday reported that an early look at data from its coronavirus vaccine
shows it is more than 90 effective a much better than expected efficacy if the trend continues
the so-called interim analysis looked at the first 94 confirmed cases of covit 19 among
the more than 43 000 volunteers who got either two doses of the vaccine or a placebo it found
that fewer than 10 percent of infections were in participants who had been given the vaccine
more than 90 percent of the cases were in people who had been given a placebo
pfizer said the vaccine provided protection seven days after the second dose and 28 days after the
initial dose of the vaccine the final goal of the trial is to reach 164 confirmed cases of
coronavirus infections in a news release the pharmaceutical giant said it plans to seek
emergency use authorization from the u.s food and drug administration soon after volunteers have
been monitored for two months after getting their second dose of vaccine as requested by the fda
and that's it for the midday news i'm herman green join us at seven for the
primetime news package on behalf of the new sports and production teams good afternoon