Some­thing that many re­gard as a land­mark in Laven­tille, is be­ing blamed for the woes be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by those liv­ing in the area.

Ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents of Africa Road, Pic­ton, over­flow­ing wa­ter from the Pic­ton Reser­voir or the two large tanks seen on the Laven­tille Hill, has erod­ed their road­way and made it im­pass­able.

“We have been go­ing through this for some months now…it’s an over­flow from the tank up there, it sup­posed to get locked off and it’s not be­ing locked off,” res­i­dent Sara Broomes said.

The res­i­dents blamed the sit­u­a­tion on the neg­li­gence of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

“As far I hear the pres­sure con­trol valve on the tank, they move the au­to­mat­ic one and it work­ing man­u­al­ly now, they pay­ing a man to do it and he nev­er on the job this is why this thing does be run­ning over­time so,” Stephen Larosa said.

This res­i­dents said, has caused a rip­ple ef­fect in the com­mu­ni­ty.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived just af­ter 2 pm yes­ter­day our team saw wa­ter run­ning at medi­um pres­sure and large holes in the road­way.

Our car was un­able to pass and this re­porter stood in a hole that was waist-deep.

“Is like a pool when the wa­ter is com­ing down, it’s like a big pool you could dive in the wa­ter,” Broomes said.

But ac­cord­ing to her, that was just the tip of the ice­berg.

“Res­i­dents have been fac­ing a great deal of wa­ter in their yards, some of them even get­ting it in their homes. For me it is reach­ing the third lev­el of my wall, when the wa­ter is com­ing down like this I can­not ex­it my house, if I am in an emer­gency I don’t know how I will be able to get out” she ex­plained.

They said WASA back­filled the dam­aged road­way ear­li­er this year but the wa­ter washed away that work, in­con­ve­nienc­ing them even fur­ther.

“No garbage truck can’t come up here again, twice a week the com­mu­ni­ties have to come to­geth­er and tote the garbage down the hill. I mean it’s a re­al in­con­ve­nience, noth­ing can’t go up the road,” Larosa said

Broomes re­count­ed a re­cent sit­u­a­tion where an el­der­ly per­son was ill and the am­bu­lance could not reach them.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly the per­son passed away,” she said sad­ly.

The res­i­dents said they have reached out to WASA, their coun­cil­lor and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area Kei­th Scot­land, who they said was the on­ly one try­ing to as­sist.

“He was wait­ing on WASA,” one res­i­dent said.

They said they can­not en­dure the wa­ter ero­sion much longer and hope it does not fur­ther dam­age their homes be­cause they can­not af­ford to fix it.

Broomes has al­ready raised her wall.

“I am a sin­gle par­ent, un­em­ployed, so if any­thing is to go wrong I don’t know what will be my next op­tion. So we re­al­ly need some­one in au­thor­i­ty to as­sist us ur­gent­ly, “she said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to WASA, with of­fi­cials say­ing yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) was the first time they heard about what the Africa Road res­i­dents were fac­ing.

But WASA of­fi­cials said the Au­thor­i­ty is work­ing to fix the sit­u­a­tion.