Emergency evacuation plan for city coming soon

This was revealed by Prime Minister Patrick Manning and the Works Minister at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference.

Manning stated that the one "shortcoming" in Government’s disaster response plan on both occasions was significant traffic congestion.

He defended his decision to issue an advisory asking people to go home by 12.30 pm since, he said as a result the streets were cleared by 6 pm and people were in a safe place.

Imbert who has been mandated to work on a traffic plan stated, "We will fine tune an evacuation plan for Port-of-Spain so there would be designated areas were people will assemble, designated exit routes, so in the event that this exercise has to be done again (I hope that it does not for a very long time) there would be a very orderly evacuation... as occurs in most developed cities."

He said the coordination between the police and the Traffic Management Branch of the Ministry of Works needed to be improved.

Manning commended the protective agencies and the health service, including the ambulances for the expeditious nature of their response.