Saturday Express

THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER FOR TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

MEMBER of Parliament Rushton Paray got it right when he described the ongoing flooding disaster as a national emergency. He has described the state of affairs as alarming, and has called on the Ministry of Works. He attributes the current situation to what he said has been an absence of routine cleaning and upkeep by the ministry's Draining Division.

Where we disagree with him, however, is in placing this matter entirely at the feet of this single ministry. While both this ministry and the Ministry of Local Government have joint operational responsibility for flood alleviation and prevention, the scale of this year's visitation has created urgencies that extend way beyond their remit.

Repeated and prolonged periods of flooding have created health hazards. Property losses and problems of access to food, clean water, fuel, medication and other necessities have become a feature of the inconveniences and hardships generated in the process.

Some communities have been cut off because of collapsed roads and damaged bridges. These, in turn, have led to people in these badly circumstanced communities risking their lives-either in seeking safer ground, or in their search for food and other immediate necessities for ordinary living.

In affected communities in South, Central and East Trinidad, as well as in parts of Tobago, financial and mental anxiety abound.

This is not a one-off situation but, rather, a feature of ongoing disruption being brought on by some of the effects of climate change and global warming already as features of life going forward.

What we face here, as this changed weather system is shown to present similar hazards in other parts of the world, are the effects of ongoing disruption of lives, and livelihoods. Multiplier effects include disruption of school and education schedules for significant numbers of children held at bay. Parents and other adults have difficulty making it to work, if at all, on more days than it will be comfortable so to do. Businesses large and small are thereby affected, one way or another, with resultant implications for productivity and commercial enterprise.

In such a calamitous situation, nothing short of a whole-of-Government approach is necessary to address the prongs of this multieffect existential reality.

Thus far, however, it is becoming increasingly worrisome that the decision-makers in the political administration are essentially not yet off the mark. With the best will and resolve in the world, the Works Minister alone cannot manage to arrest this highly disruptive tide.

From what we have been publishing in recent weeks, based as they have been on the spot reporting from our team, a clear picture has developed. Beleaguered and stressed families in one section of the country or another have been hard-pressed to come up with strategies of their own.

People in too many parts of the country have been badly served. The Government and its related agencies have simply been exposed as missing in action.

Once again, it is our considered opinion that the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management should have been kicked into full gear. They should be on the ground, co-ordinating disaster responses, delivering assistance and aiding in the national effort to maintain resilience.

What we have instead is the unsettling image of a Government that is woefully unresponsive, bereft of empathy, missing in action at a moment in time when such sentiments are in high demand.