The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) says it is lend­ing a help­ing hand in the on­go­ing re­lief ef­forts on the is­lands of Grena­da, Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tit Mar­tinique, which were re­cent­ly rav­aged by the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Beryl.

Near to­tal de­struc­tion was re­port­ed on Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tit Mar­tinique in the af­ter­math of the dis­as­ter and prompt­ed a re­gion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an and re­lief ef­fort re­sponse.

In a me­dia re­lease to­day, the TTPS said a team of five of­fi­cers—com­pris­ing ASP (Ag.) Steve Mc Ken­zie, In­sp Lyn­don Bas­ant, Sgt Ryan Metivi­er and PCs Cordell Abra­ham and Alvin Rose—was de­ployed to the dis­as­ter zone on Fri­day 12 Ju­ly 2024, to join the Cari­com Dis­as­ter Re­lief Unit (CDRU).

It said this team was pre­vi­ous­ly trained by the CDRU and is part of its re­sponse mech­a­nism to dis­as­ters in the re­gion.

The CDRU is made up of per­son­nel from the Roy­al St. Lu­cia Po­lice Force, the St. Lu­cia Fire Ser­vice, the Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca Po­lice Force, the Do­mini­ca Fire and Am­bu­lance Ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment and the Guyana De­fence Force. It works in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Na­tion­al Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Agency, the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices and oth­er re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an or­gan­i­sa­tions.

ASP (Ag.) Mc Ken­zie says the pri­ma­ry func­tion of the CDRU team is man­age­ment, al­lo­ca­tion, lo­gis­tics and dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­lief sup­plies.

“We are cur­rent­ly as­sist­ing in of­fload­ing car­go ships laden with re­lief items at the port of Car­ri­a­cou and us­ing GPS map­ping to iden­ti­fy shel­ters where res­i­dents are be­ing housed, so re­lief can be di­rect­ed their way,” he said.

De­spite the chal­lenges faced on the ground, ASP (Ag.) Mc Ken­zie af­firmed that the team re­mains mo­ti­vat­ed and “con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent the TTPS with PRIDE”, as they are aware of the plight of the res­i­dents of the is­lands.  He said they are com­mit­ted to do­ing all they can with their skills and train­ing to pro­vide much need­ed re­lief.

The team, which has been well-re­ceived and have had their ef­forts ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, is ex­pect­ed to end their tour of du­ty on Fri­day 26 Ju­ly 2024.