Still not ready for storm

On Monday, during the day, into the night and again into the early hours of Tuesday morning we were bombarded via media of one kind or the other with bulletins, updates, lists of important numbers, of shelters and of items to have during an emergency. All well and good.

We were told to be prepared, to hunker down, to put out sandbags — one person reported they were provided with bags by a regional corporation but not sand. Yup, it was fast-paced, the adrenalin was flowing and it almost felt that Bret would not stand a chance against our level of preparedness.

We wondered about going to work the following day, especially in view of the forecasts for rain, wind and street flooding. Many anticipated therefore that a directive would have come from the State for businesses to be closed and for the citizenry — except essential services, police, fire etc — to remain at home.

This sounded like a safer option, naturally, as more people traversing the roadways meant the potential for more victims, if it became “ole mas” out there, and a greater strain for the already stretched emergency services. Then the announcement came for the schoolchildren to remain at home.

But what about their parents? Were their parents to leave their children at home to man the sandbag embankments, to move around the furniture and appliances to higher ground, as the threatened flood waters rushed in and to call the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management, as their roofs were ripped from their houses? Tobago announced its government departments were to remain closed. Tobagonian public servants breathed a sigh of relief.

But meanwhile in Trinidad we waited for an announcement which never came. So parents would have to leave their children at home and hope for the best.

This seemingly “wait let’s see what happens approach” to disaster management appears naive at best and foolhardy at worse. It bred uncertainty in the minds of many and people felt leaderless at a time of national crisis.

To top it all off, the PSA president got in on the act and called for public servants to remain at home. His argument in this regard sounded pretty rationale, especially for him, and in this instance Watson Duke, of whom I am no fan, gained the high ground, pardon the pun, and seemed just a bit more of a leader in this harrowing scenario.

The Health Social Workers Association of TT ’s (HESWATT ) position is that it is best to err on the side of caution. It would have been better to close all services, except essential ones, so that people could be closer to their homes to help in their defence and so also to avoid themselves becoming victims in scenarios of rising flood waters and sudden downpours with gusty winds.

What Brett has revealed is that as a nation we are still not ready to properly coordinate a well thoughtout and, let’s face it, a common-sense approach to disaster management. Banks were closed, PTS C was running a limited service, many taxi drivers were off the roads and public servants and many workers, despite the harrowing circumstances they may have faced in getting to work, had to make their way home on Tuesday.

HESWATT expresses its sympathy to those who have lost property and to those who may have been injured by the passage of Bret, mindful that this injury may not just be physical but emotional and mental as well.

We take this opportunity to remind members of the public that medical and psychiatric social workers, who comprise the membership of HESWATT , are available at each major health institution and part of our mandate is to provide a counselling service to people facing difficult times, such as natural disasters.

MICHAEL JATTAN president HESWATT