Trench Town devastation after hurricane Dean

WEB EXCLUSIVE Hurricane Dean hit Kingston’s historic slum hard. Eight days after the storm, power lines in Trenchtown are still down and debris lie on the streets.
Rare look into the “home of Bob Marley”, one of Jamaica’s poorest and most dangerous slums.
The storm claimed four lives in Jamaica. In south-coast parishes, people are starving and food has to be rationed.

Kingston. Trench Town (photo Jean-Cosme Delaloye) looks like a war zone eight days after the passage of hurricane Dean in Jamaica. Power lines are still down in this slum in Kingston, where Bob Marley grew up. People are trying to clear the debris from the middle of the streets. Last week, winds blowing at 230 km/h have destroyed a lot of the weaker structures in the neighborhood. «It’s ghetto man, says Clifford Bent, a 45-year old rasta man. We cannot rely on the government to help us. We have to do it ourselves». Despite the lack of electricity, people are going about their business. Inside a shack, a 77-year old fisherman everybody in Trench Town calls «Man», speaks loud and angrily about broken promises that reach back to the 16th century and the slave trade.

In Trench Town, there is an overwhelming feeling of despair. Housing complexes are run down. The limits of the slum are clearly marked by the new yellow apartment buildings on each side of the ghetto. Hurricane Dean had dire consequences for the young people of the neighborhood. Kevin, a 26-year old carpenter, kills time smoking ganja. «Since the hurricane, there is no work, he said. We will have to wait until after the general elections .» The poll originally scheduled for August 27, has been postponed until September 3. As for the state of emergency, it was was finally lifted on August 25.

« Ratties, ratties ». Each time people of Trench Town see an army or police patrol in the streets of the slum, they warn each other. «Ratties stand for rat patrol, said Kevin. When they come, we put down our pipes and try to avoid them because they beat us up and brutalize us ». Dean made a tense situation even worse as the already troubled neighborhood plunges into dark as soon as night falls. «Right now, it is calm, says a man whose nickname is Coopa. But it can turn very quickly. There are lots of killings and robberies around Trench Town ».

In a small and basic restaurant in a shack on Fourth Street, a cook is frying dumplings. The supplies of food have dwindled because of the lack of power. « It is not like in Uptown here, adds Clifford. We do not have plazas. We only have small grocery stores and a few places serving food ». The restaurants are mostly small «holes in the walls » of nondescript buildings. And there are no fancy meals here, just dumplings and simple dishes.

Kingston was hit hard by hurricane Dean. Outside Trench Town, a lot of power lines are still down. Elsewhere in Jamaica, the onslaught of the third most intense hurricane since 1850 has left a trail of devastation. 30 kilometers north of Kingston, banana plantations are totally wiped out. In the eastern part of the island, a lot of shacks have been blown away by the winds and of a storm which claimed four lives in Jamaica. In south-coast communities, food had to be rationed and people have no running water.

Each parish has its own scars from Dean. Ice has become an expensive commodity and the price of a bag of ice has tripled in some parishes. But with the announcement that general elections will be held on September 3, Jamaicans now hope for a return to normalcy.

Trenchtown / Jean-Cosme Delaloye

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