On Monday, Police Officers engaged in an exercise they described as "total policing," to monitor and curtail the activities of criminals across the nation.There is no justification for an act that had the effect of shutting down Trinidad and Tobago. The country is still counting the cost of crippled productivity and severely disrupted lives, workplaces, schools and even essential services.In only a couple of hours, critical road arteries into and out of the city were choked, creating a traffic gridlock that reached out of the city for dozens of miles.
However, the ill advised action did shed some light on a pressing national issue. It made clear in the starkest terms possible, the critical weaknesses in road access into and out of the capital of this country. What if the circumstances had not been unhappy police officers and had, instead, been a natural disaster that destroyed road access at the same critical points? Where was the plan to deal with that situation and who would have been able to articulate it in time to save lives?
As it was, the Government's representatives moved far too slowly to manage the situation. Useful information was not being shared, people stuck in stalled traffic relied on their phones to consult Waze and Facebook for updates, What'sApp to confer with colleagues and phone calls and text messages to share information and to commiserate.Official information and messaging trailed such ground level communication efforts by hours, arriving long after the situation was effectively over.
On Monday, that was an annoyance. In a true disaster, it would be life-threatening.Officials have been talking about an evacuation plan for major population centres, starting with Tobago, Port-of-Spain and San Fernando since 2009.With every natural disaster since then, this conversation has resumed before trailing off into silence.In November 2010, the Security, OSHA Compliance and Disaster Management Committee of the Port-of-Spain City Corporation promised a plan to the city's mayor within a week.
In July 2011 Dr Stephen Ramroop announced evacuation exercises and promised that his agency, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management had the capacity and resources to handle any situation. By April 2012, a draft evacuation plan and an egress plan for the city of Port-of-Spain was put on hold, pending revisions to account for the 30,000 children attending school in the capital.Plans don't always survive reality.
Strategies to deal with a tsunami apparently collapsed in the face of intense police work. The much heralded text messaging system remained silent while citizens seethed at the standstill. Officials proved unable to respond to the situation in a timely manner. These failings point to a need for brisker more effective communication with citizens, and the need to circulate these plans, which remain inexcusably incomplete.
Anyone in T&T should be able to access the evacuation plan for their environs, understand the paths they should consider for safe exits and know where the musterpoints are in their current location.
A disaster plan that is opaque to the people it is designed to help is not, as Monday proved, no plan at all.