The rainy season is here and with it the time of hurricane winds and tropical storms blowing through the Caribbean. It is the time too here in T&T when home owners, commuters and sections of the business community most exposed to being drenched and flooded-out by heavy rains will be damming the local and central government bodies for what was not done in the dry season. Such condemnation is quite legitimate as the authorities seem to go through the dry season paying little attention to mountains of debris and garbage that have accumulated in the waterways.
Little is then done to mitigate against the floods that will come as sure as the rains will. However, while those complaints are very legitimate, it needs to be established in this first editorial on the rainy and hurricane season, that there is a personal and community responsibility which we must all take ownership of. And there is very good reason for acknowledging that we all have a responsibility here, that reason being we in our households, communities and business operations are the ones who will suffer greatest loss and trauma.
Community care of rivers and streams, including ensuring that the waterways are not dumps for garbage, the avoidance of building on river banks that become saturated, and working in communities to erect retaining walls and other anti-flooding measures are a few of the preventative actions which can be taken in the community. Farmers' crops and livestock are always going to be vulnerable, especially in the open plains where proper drainage does not exist. It is in such situations where the infrastructure works may be beyond the individual and community that the Government has to take charge.
Last year when the rains came, the Works Minister ventured that in the six-month interim after the rains have ceased, he would "make flooding a thing of the past." Perhaps the present minister has been too eager to dismiss deeply entrenched problems associated to human behaviours, the absence of the required infrastructure and the necessary time it would take to construct the ponds, the sluice gates, the drainage systems in the city centre and the dredging and cleaning of rivers. It is not too late for many of these measures to be constructed and put into place to at least avoid the major suffering caused by the rainy season.
Hurricanes we simply do not understand in this generation, the last major one, Flora, having struck in October of 1963, almost two full generations ago. Because of this ignorance of what it means to be struck by a category four/five hurricane, we have developed all forms of nonsense practices inclusive of hurricane fetes and the doubly stupid notion of "God being a Trini" and therefore He would always be standing in guard over us. It is not for this editorial to determine what this loving God will do, just to say that one morning after the hurricane we could be in deep shock because we failed to prepare properly.
Beyond the preparations which can be made before a hurricane or tropical storm strikes by way of infrastructure preparation, relief/cleaning-up after the wind and water have become still is a major challenge to be faced. Last year, the new Government and Prime Minister were furious at what they considered the slow and inadequate responses of the ODPM. As Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said a couple days ago, changes have been made at the organisation and after a meeting with the executive she feels confident of a timely and sufficient response. The most vulnerable residents are depending on the preparations.