Gail Alexan­der

T&T’s Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices is get­ting a GOES-16 satel­lite re­ceiv­ing sys­tem to en­hance weath­er fore­cast­ing and the Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (TTEC) will ob­tain an am­phibi­ous ve­hi­cle to aid its re­sponse time in ex­treme weath­er con­di­tions.

This is among the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry’s plans on en­hanc­ing dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­tailed plans on Fri­day dur­ing Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of the min­istry’s $2.8 bil­lion Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion.

Gon­za­les said the min­istry’s 2023 al­lo­ca­tion will be used to un­der­pin its work in the util­i­ties sec­tor, em­pha­sis­ing trans­for­ma­tion to al­low for more ag­ile de­liv­ery mod­els, par­tic­u­lar­ly for un­served and un­de­served ar­eas.

Gon­za­les added, “The fol­low­ing is note­wor­thy—the trans­for­ma­tion plan for WASA is un­der­way. With re­spect to cli­mate change, spe­cial em­pha­sis is be­ing placed on en­hanc­ing dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and build­ing re­silience for util­i­ties to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of cli­mate change, with its ex­treme weath­er events such as flood­ing, as we’ve been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing over the last few days.”

Gon­za­les cit­ed the pro­cure­ment of a GOES-16 satel­lite re­ceiv­ing sys­tem by the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices “to en­hance ca­pa­bil­i­ty to mon­i­tor and analyse evolv­ing weath­er con­di­tions.”

The Na­tion­al Ocean and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NOAA’s) GOES-16 satel­lite was launched in 2017. It pro­vides high-de­f­i­n­i­tion im­ages and oth­er da­ta for weath­er fore­cast­ing, se­vere storm track­ing and me­te­o­rol­o­gy re­search. NOAA’s web­site stat­ed its pic­tures show full-disc view of the West­ern Hemi­sphere in high de­tail res­o­lu­tion, al­low­ing pin­point­ing of the lo­ca­tion of se­vere weath­er with greater ac­cu­ra­cy. GOES-16 can pro­vide a full im­age of Earth every 15 min­utes.

Al­so, for the Met Ser­vices, Gon­za­les not­ed, “The com­mence­ment of the con­struc­tion of a mod­ern fit for pur­pose build­ing to house the Met Ser­vices’ head of­fice and the ac­qui­si­tion of an am­phibi­ous ve­hi­cle for TTEC to aid in its re­sponse time in ex­treme weath­er con­di­tions.”

Bud­get fund­ing al­so cov­ers desk­top and tablet fa­cil­i­ties for the new build­ing.

Gon­za­les al­so said there are some oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty is­sues with the Met Ser­vices’ cur­rent build­ing, which the min­istry will have to deal with. He said the new build­ing will take 24 months or less to build but the min­istry couldn’t wait that length of time and not deal with ex­ist­ing is­sue.

Fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed will as­sist with deal­ing with the “ur­gent safe­ty is­sues and safe work­ing en­vi­ron­ment” and the cur­rent build­ing won’t be in breach of OSH law.

The Met Ser­vices was al­so al­lo­cat­ed $800,000 to fill 13 va­can­cies. Gon­za­les as­sured UNC MP Dave Tan­coo that va­can­cies hadn’t af­fect­ed Met Ser­vices’ work.

Gon­za­les added, “The team at (the Met Ser­vices) has done yeo­man ser­vice. I have no ev­i­dence that the 13 va­cant posts would have im­pact­ed the di­vi­sion’s work.”

Gon­za­les said Gov­ern­ment will en­sure the di­vi­sion has the re­sources to con­tin­ue do­ing the work they need­ed to do.