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Posted By Tam hallam
I currently work on site in the Carribean (HM Forces)and have been accompanied by my family. There is system of drainage ditches, which are concrete in design and vary in sizes from 6 inches to 2 feet in depth and are mostly not covered! These ditches form a complex maze around the offices and married building to allow the rain, storm waters to subside. I raised an concern about these ditches as I found out that children had been playing in them and that a number of people had actually fallen into them. Just yesterday my wife stepped over one as it runs through my garden and lost her footing and now has grazes and bruises on both legs. Surelly after the first recorded accident, procedures should have been put inplace to safegaurd the families health and well being.
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Posted By garyh
Report it in writing to your "manager" or the safety officer or whatever. There must be an accident book or similar? Somone responsible for H&S issues?
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Posted By DPK
Ha, good luck, elfnsafety in the Caribbean.
Just have another Rum and the pain will go away.
Sorry for the remark, but I do not fancy your chances of getting much done, especially if you are in a hurry to get it done.
DPK
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Posted By RP
It's amazing that locals don't fall in??
I lived in Singapore for several years and fell into a monsoon ditch, still have the scars. Sadly thats the way of life in these countries, and it won't change....
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Posted By Larry
I grew up in Cyprus and also worked there for a bit, I also lived and worked in Saudi Arabia and Puerto Rico. So I know about these type of open storm drains.
The fact is that you cannot just cover them. There is more to making a covered drain than many think. If you cover these type of drains water pressure during a heavy flow can and will destroy them.
The first thing that happens is that the internal pressure increases and fluctuations will blow the lids off. After that the damage drain pieces will be washed along by the flow and increase the amount of damage sustained by the whole drainage system. The damaging effect will then snowball and the end result is going to be thousands of pounds of damage. There will also be a serious risk caused by the remaining covers of the drains now being loose or repositioned where they will move, topple or collapse when someone treads on them. Not to mention the now rubble filled and blocked drains causing floods and then disease. In 1992 one badly designed storm drain in the Asir Mountains where I was working was completely washed away. It was 5 feet across and 1/2 mile long.
What you need to do is note their positions and walk around them, not step or jump over them. There is little else that can be done and the biggest risk (IMO) comes from the creatures that live in them, such as scorpions and snakes.
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Posted By Tam hallam
Thanks for your comments so far, even though I do like the odd rum or two the fact that I work in HM Forces, we are still governed by UK legislation regarding Health and Safety.
They are a few of these ditches that have already been covered with open grating to allow the waters to enter and allow them to flow into the larger open ditches. Surelly if they can do it for the smaller ditches then the same should apply to the larger ones.
People have been injured that has required hospital treatment in the past, this should be reason enough to rectify the problem. There are also no warning signs for these ditches.
Larry I'm afraid its too late in regards to blocked drains as this seems to be the main problem when a severe rain storm happens, as the waters take some time to subside. A cleaning programme should be brought into effect to ensure that waters subside in a timely fashion.
They do have a concrete path (3ft wide)over them to allow access into buildings that have ditches in front of them but some of these don't have any barriers either side of them to stop people falling in. The playground is surrounded by them and as such children will inevitablly be children and do what you tell them not to do.
We are governed by UK Legisation regardless of being oversees, so we should still have the same rights and protection to that of people living in the UK.
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