Large scale weather

Ramroop raises requirements for preventing the transformation of large scale events into large scale disasters. Mitigation measures must accompany the building or renovation of any stadium and for the planning for any anticipated massive crowd.

Ramroop advocated systems for the safe evacuation of buildings and venues. He said a command centre with a good communication system and protective services staff who enforce protocols and law can save more lives than 100 safety officers with a poor communication system. Hospitals should be able to cater for a surge capacity of an extra 20 percent of their normal capacity, he calculated, and have field response teams able to initially stabilise victims at the incident site, so as to prevent a crush at the hospital.

These requirements should go beyond the limited meaning of Ramroop’s traditional definition of large scale events and should entail preparedness for the rainy and hurricane seasons which we dismiss until reality hits us in the face.

Indeed, now that the rains are upon us and the Atlantic readies to spawn its seasonal turbulence, we must ask whether the standard operating procedures to mitigate any adverse consequences and enable us to better weather any storm have been shared with all respondents.

We have grown quite accustomed to watching disasters – natural and man-made – unfurl with devastating effects on their locale. Most times we view them as a passing story without sparing much thought that it can happen here.

The head of the Seismic Research Centre keeps reminding us that we are due for “the big one” any time, but we are indifferent to her words until the next violent shake, relegating our exchanges only to who felt it and when and where and what they were doing at the time. Earthquakes we cannot predict, but we have a better handle on the type of weather that can occur at particular times of every year.

Our witness in Trinidad and Tobago to the characteristic Caribbean hurricane is mostly that of feeder bands with just enough rain to trigger inundation of homes and plains with flash flooding thankfully most times without irreparable damage.

But despite the ominous signs of what can happen from a larger event, we do not go much beyond quarrelling over spill-off issues like the lack of dredging and the presence of clogged waterways from the waste we carelessly dump everywhere.

All of therefore Ramroop’s letter and its warnings assume added significance because he knows that rain and hurricanes can also be large scale events and we must prepare for them with the same diligence as we do for the traditional.