Ryan Ba­choo

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (RDLG) says it has in­ten­si­fied its ef­forts to en­hance pre­pared­ness and re­silience across com­mu­ni­ties for the up­com­ing rainy sea­son.

In a state­ment on Sun­day morn­ing - a day af­ter heavy rain­fall across the coun­try - the RDLG min­istry said it recog­nis­es the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of proac­tive mea­sures and has amped up its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the 14 Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions.

The Min­istry says it has de­ployed rel­e­vant equip­ment for de­silt­ing ex­er­cis­es in drains and wa­ter­cours­es to op­ti­mize wa­ter flow and mit­i­gate flood risks, en­sur­ing the safe­ty of cit­i­zens in flood-prone ar­eas as above-nor­mal num­bers of wet days are fore­cast­ed.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, RDLG, in part­ner­ship with Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions' Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, and Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice, has launched a Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Out­reach Pro­gramme in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools. This ini­tia­tive aims to em­pow­er stu­dents with the knowl­edge and skills nec­es­sary to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

As we tran­si­tion in­to the rainy sea­son, we urge all res­i­dents to stay in­formed, stay pre­pared, and stay safe. By tak­ing proac­tive steps and work­ing to­geth­er, we can min­i­mize the im­pact of heavy rains and en­sure our com­mu­ni­ty re­mains un­scathed," the state­ment said.