Chaos and confusion reign in PoS

In scenes vividly reminiscent of Monday’s explosion in downtown Port-of-Spain which injured 14 persons, there was a mad rush of people seeking to find any kind of transportation they could to leave the city after word spread like wildfire that Emily posed a direct threat to TT.

Around 11 am yesterday, a statement from Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s Whitehall office advised all employers to allow their workers to depart from work by 12.30 pm "to enable them to proceed to their homes, in order to make the necessary arrangements for any possibilities."

The Government said these measures were deemed necessary because "the latest advisories from the Meterological Office and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (OPDM) suggested that given the projected course of Emily, TT is expected to be affected by severe weather patterns."

Regular bulletins were also issued throughout the day from the OPDM, advising the population of the locations of various emergency shelters and about what they should do to prepare for a tropical storm or hurricane.

Within minutes of the Whitehall statement being issued, all government ministries, government agencies and businesses in Port-of-Spain sent their employees home and closed up shop for the day. Every street in the city was clogged with vehicles and hundreds of pedestrians trying to find any kind of public transportation they could to leave the city as quickly as possible. Car parks in the city emptied in record time and in several parts of Port-of-Spain, people were seen crossing between cars locked in bumper-to-bumper traffic as they made their way towards Independence Square and the City Gate transit hub. Taxi services in the city were also stretched to the limit with people reportedly fighting for any car they could get.

Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) president Gregory Aboud said all businesses in the city, including those in the area affected by Monday’s explosion and which had re-opened for business yesterday, closed their doors and sent their employees home after receiving word from the Government to do so.

Aboud however expressed concern that the manner in which people were leaving the city caused unnecessary congestion, and suggested that there should have been some sort of system in place to allow persons living in South, Central and East Trinidad to leave Port-of-Spain in an orderly manner. The DOMA president admitted that while this week was not a good one for businesses in Port-of-Spain due to Monday’s explosion and yesterday’s storm warning, the safety of employees, customers and all other persons in the city was the overriding concern.

As far as Monday’s explosion was concerned, Aboud said Port-of-Spain was "coming back into its own" with the re-opening of the affected areas to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Noting that DOMA will meet on Saturday at the Crowne Plaza hotel to discuss Monday’s events and the security situation in downtown Port-of-Spain, Aboud disclosed that DOMA will soon seek meetings with Prime Minister Patrick Manning and National Security Minister Martin Joseph about security in the city and related matters.

Among the Port-of-Spain businesses hardest hit by yesterday’s storm warning and Monday’s explosion were National Lotteries Control Board terminals, which were forced to suspend all of its online games (including Play Whe and Pick Two) because of the storm warning.

Port-of-Spain Mayor Murchison Brown said the city was immediately closed down after news was received of the possible threat which Emily posed to TT.

The Airports Authority of TT (AATT) advised the population that the Crown Point Airport in Tobago was closed at 3 pm because of the storm but Piarco International Airport remained open. Tobago Express general manager George Bell said the airline was able to undertake only ten of the 21 daily flights which it regularly undertakes to the sister isle. A similar situation pertained at the Port Authority of TT which announced that the evening sailings of the MV Sonia and The Lynx to Tobago were cancelled because of the storm. AATT officials said while there was a cancellation of one American Airlines flight into Piarco, the airport was fully operational and flights were still coming into and leaving Trinidad. They added that operations will resume at Crown Point at 8 am today. Energy companies took immediate steps to ensure the safety of their offshore facilities as the storm approached. They included British Gas and bpTT.

However by 2 pm yesterday, the situation in Port-of-Spain had eased considerably after the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) in Miami issued word that all hurricane warnings for Emily within the region had been replaced by tropical storm warnings and the hurricane watch for Trinidad had been discontinued. According to the NHC, Emily was expected to deteriorate and not strengthen into a hurricane.