The residents, several of whom had lost hope of ever getting piped water, felt that the closer they lived to the river was the better for them as it spared them the hazardous task of carrying buckets of water on their heads for long distances.

Many of the residents claimed that they had become experts on the river as they were able to predict how it would behave during heavy rains, and never had thoughts of relocating when the Wag Water was in spate, or as some called it 'when river come down'.

"Me don't feel comfortable living here again because it don't meck sense living in fear that you go to sleep and you might not wake up because the river could take you out you house," said Owen Small, who has lived in Content for more than 20 years.

"Me did have some fowl ah stay up in one tree behind the house and all them the river took away," Small said.
In addition, all his pigs and crops - his only source of income - were carried downstream.

Small said his 12-year-old son is now afraid to stay home for fear that the river will soon consume them all. "Him get fi fraid ah the river that him use to swim ina and so when rain set up fi fall me haffi send him to a relative," said the St Mary farmer.

What is even more frightening for him is that a culvert which carries water from the hillside and across the main road into the river runs through the middle of his yard when the river is in spate.

"When the river is flooded and the water cannot run out of the culvert quick enough it flows over into the yard and has been digging out the house posts," he said, pointing to one of the columns on which his humble dwelling sits.

The yard was devoid of top soil as the entire area was covered with huge boulders and tree trunks the river deposited there during the passage of Gustav.

Despite this fear, however, Small and many other residents say they have no intention of abandoning the land which they own, although the river has been slowly eating it away.
Winston Buchanan, another resident, said he would be the first to leave if he had somewhere else to go.

"Is not like we can go capture people land, so all we have to do is to prepare to run when next it is flooded," he said.
A woman who gave her name only as Shelly, a 21-year-old resident of Golden Valley, said 15 years ago her mother returned to live at her childhood home built close to the river on land owned by an uncle.

Shortly after moving back, the house was destroyed by fire and they lost everything. But over time they rebuilt the house and additional rooms were constructed in the same yard when the children became adults. They believe they were at the perfect location because of the easy access to the river.
"We no have any running water here so it has always been good for us that we live so near the river," Shelly said.

This is the sentiment expressed by other residents, some of whom were seen doing their laundry in the river and hanging them out to dry on huge boulders when the Observer visited the community.

In previous storms, Shelly said, life returned to normal quickly as the river would only flatten a few crops planted close to its banks.

However, during Gustav the water flooded out a newly built house in her yard and came inches of flowing into the room they were all huddled in.

"At one point we hear the neighbours come and say the river is under their house and my brother was in the new house sleeping and so we had to run and wake him up," she said. He got out just in time.

Doors and windows for the house were installed the day before Gustav hit, said Shelly, as they wanted to be under a concrete roof during the passage of the storm.

Shelly said her mother believe she wasted her money because she no longer feels safe living close to the Wag Water River.

"Right now my mother wants to relocate but we don't have the money or the land," she said.

Shelly said she thought her mother knew of the dangers when she moved there, but had no other choice. "It was a real major crisis that took place in our lives that caused us to come back here and we didn't have a choice," she said.
"I don't know how to explain how it feel but we get really afraid of the river, and I don't know what is going to happen to us when the next hurricane comes," she said.

Joseph Hibbert, the junior minister in the Ministry of Transport and Works, said that once the Government established no-build zones along the Hope River in St Andrew, it would be moving to other parishes with similar regulations. St Mary, he said, would come in for special attention since a number of residents continue to build near the Wag Water River.

In the meantime, residents of Golden Valley and Content need to take the warning from Gustav seriously.