Geisha Kow­lessar

A dis­as­ter plan tar­get­ing the evac­u­a­tion of schools in Port-of-Spain has been sit­ting on the shelves since 2010. All it needs for ap­proval is a sig­na­ture from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing said in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day. He said the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion com­plet­ed a plan ti­tled the Egress Plan which ex­am­ined the safe move­ment of peo­ple out of the city in the event of a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, es­pe­cial­ly flood­ing.

The plan al­so de­tailed pro­ce­dures for deal­ing with evac­u­a­tion of schools in Port-of-Spain. But the plan, how­ev­er, is yet to be giv­en the green light as it has nev­er been signed off by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Lee Sing said. "We com­plet­ed the plan since 2010, with­in six months...We have a spe­cif­ic fo­cus as it re­lates to schools in the city," he said.

"All we are wait­ing for is the sig­na­ture of the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter and we have no rea­son what is the keep-back." The plan was co-or­di­nat­ed by Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor Robin By­noe, chair­man of the Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee.

It was done in con­junc­tion with Port-of-Spain dis­as­ter man­age­ment co-or­di­na­tor Kei­th Cook and in­clud­ed sev­er­al stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice and the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM). Re­peat­ed ef­forts to meet with Gopeesingh, Lee Sing said, have failed as it was al­ways con­veyed that the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter was not avail­able.

"We even went in­to his of­fice on one oc­ca­sion and we met his then per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Mr Suite, who spoke to us very kind­ly," the may­or said. "We did not get an au­di­ence with the min­is­ter for one rea­son or the oth­er, and it is two years now we are wait­ing for him to sign off on the plan."

With the start of the rainy sea­son, Lee Sing said it was im­per­a­tive to have the plan im­ple­ment­ed. He said Port-of-Spain com­prised 26 parks and squares, 13 po­lice sta­tions and 52 schools which were reg­is­tered. The av­er­age pop­u­la­tion of each school ranged be­tween 400 and 500 pupils.

"So that's a pop­u­la­tion of 26,500 and those are the schools that are reg­is­tered...The fig­ure could be high­er be­cause there could be schools which are un­reg­is­tered," Lee Sing said. "We are not on­ly send­ing home the chil­dren, we are send­ing home the par­ents as well, and that's mass con­fu­sion on the road."

In the event of mas­sive flood­ing in the city, the plan rec­om­mend­ed that school­child­ren wait at least two or three hours for wa­ters to sub­side and then pro­ceed out of Port-of-Spain to their re­spec­tive homes. He added there were three main ar­ter­ies lead­ing out of Port-of-Spain and go­ing east.

"But there is on­ly one main artery head­ing west and I am talk­ing St James and be­yond," Lee Sing said. Say­ing de­par­ture from Port-of-Spain re­quired tremen­dous co-or­di­na­tion and a prop­er­ly-man­aged com­mand cen­tre, Lee Sing de­mand­ed that Gopeesingh ac­knowl­edged the cor­po­ra­tion's plan.

"The min­is­ter needs to get in­volved in the plan be­cause he can ei­ther mash up the plan or make it work," he said. "But I am not re­al­ly wor­ried. I sus­pect he (Gopeesingh) would not be there with­in the next two weeks, so I am not quar­relling."

Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gopeesingh said it was not "will" but rather lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion which pre­vent­ed the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry from sign­ing off on the plan for al­most two years. The min­is­ter said that mat­ter fell with­in the am­bit of the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and oth­er tech­nocrats at the min­istry who would grant the ap­proval of the plan.

"Mr Lee Sing has been my friend for many, many years," Gopeesingh said. "He knows my phone num­ber and all he has to do is sim­ply pick up the phone and call me and set up a meet­ing...I would be more than will­ing to meet with him. "It is not a mat­ter of will which has pre­vent­ed the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry from sign­ing off on the plan, but rather poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion or lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion."