Last week we told you all about the City Council's plan for its first hundred days in office - but that didn't include cleaning all drains.
And that's because even if Mayor Bradley and his round table stayed up nights working on all the clogged drains in the city - they still wouldn't even be halfway done after a hundred days!
The drains have been the victims of chronic neglect and no one knows that better than Carlos Diaz. He lives right next to a huge storm drain - and when it rains, his entire neighborhood floods.
It's been raining a lot lately - and despite all best efforts - he hasn't been able to get the city council to come and clean out the drain. So in a mixture of frustration and civic duty, he decided to do it himself today. He told Monica Bodden why:..
Carlos Diaz
"What happen is that this drain has been blocked for so long and I've been calling City Council and the calling on the talk shows trying to get their attention to it and they have not responded and since the rain started around the middle of May, every weekend this whole block is flooded. People can't even get in the church. I have been calling and like my good friend Godwin Hulse said "don't stay at the bus station complaining, get on the bus." So I decide to get on the bus and I went to clean the drain. You can see what I've taken out the drain; old tire, old crate, old tanks, a basketball, sticks, plastic and everything that you can think about come out the drain."
"What happens is that everything that goes in there forms a base - everything goes to lodge against it and then it blocks the drain. Then it takes maybe like a week for the drain to seep through but in the other week the rains come again, so before the water goes down more rains come and then the water goes back up again."
Monica Bodden
"How much man power did you need to clear up this drain?"
Carlos Diaz
"Just two of us; me and my partner Lennox. Just two of us did it. I have my own pump and we get water and pump it and back wash the drain - took all the hard stuff and back wash the drain."
Monica Bodden
"Is this costing you?"
Carlos Diaz
"Of course, it's costing me; my time, my pump, my gasoline and my everything, but it's my community. I don't have a problem to work for my community."
Diaz says he will continue working in his community - even without the help of the council.
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