Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

“Please don’t abuse my peo­ple!” That is the ap­peal of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment’s (ODPM) Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) to mem­bers of the pub­lic who hurl in­sults to staff on the field dur­ing pe­ri­ods of flood­ing.

Re­tired Ma­jor Gen­er­al Rod­ney Smart be­lieves the source of the pub­lic’s frus­tra­tion, when they see ODPM ve­hi­cles in the area while they are at the mer­cy of flood­wa­ters, stems from a mis­un­der­stand­ing of the ODPM’s func­tion.

Smart said he felt like a bro­ken record but re­peat­ed that the ODPM is a co­or­di­nat­ing agency, and the first re­spon­ders re­main the re­spec­tive re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions’ Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units and com­mu­ni­ty re­sources such as the area’s fire and po­lice ser­vice.

“So, please don’t abuse any­body be­cause I can as­sure you every­one who comes out to help, com­ing out with the in­tent that you and your fam­i­ly are safe, don’t abuse any of the re­spon­ders, be it first or sec­ond re­spon­ders, sup­port them.”

How­ev­er, the ODPM CEO said this does not mean that the pub­lic should hes­i­tate to reach out for as­sis­tance if the cir­cum­stances war­rant their in­ter­ven­tion.

“I won’t ever say don’t call the ODPM, in the event that you are un­able to con­tact the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit, call the ODPM, be­cause at the end of the day, it is Gov­ern­ment agen­cies who are there to sup­port the pub­lic, while we are not the first re­sponse, if you can­not for some rea­son, you can­not get on­to the DMU and you need help, call the ODPM. We re­ceive calls and we will find the var­i­ous agen­cies and in the ul­ti­mate, the ODPM will find re­sources to come and save lives.”

Speak­ing at the ODPM’s Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Fair at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Smart again warned the pub­lic to pre­pare for the up­com­ing rainy sea­son, but be­yond the sand­bags and en­sur­ing they have sup­plies to see out pe­ri­ods of flood­ing.

The CEO al­so spoke about the im­por­tance of know­ing when to evac­u­ate the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Once you recog­nise that you or your fam­i­ly are at risk, don’t chance the pos­si­bil­i­ty of it not hap­pen­ing, and there­fore we al­ways en­cour­age peo­ple to evac­u­ate their homes once there is a threat. The Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is al­ways ready to open a shel­ter if the need be­comes nec­es­sary. I am mak­ing that point be­cause there is a per­cep­tion the ODPM is re­spon­si­ble for shel­ters, no, the ODPM is not re­spon­si­ble for shel­ters.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s event, stop­ping at near­ly each booth and prais­ing the staff for their ser­vice to the coun­try.
He de­clined to speak with the me­dia while there, say­ing he was late for an­oth­er en­gage­ment.

How­ev­er, he did leave with a les­son from an em­ploy­ee at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture.

While speak­ing with staff at the booth on the top­ic of the gi­ant African snail, the Min­is­ter said while he is not rec­om­mend­ing it, he heard that a cer­tain “species of hu­man” deal with the in­va­sive pests by eat­ing them.

“I un­der­stand that there is a view that if mankind starts to con­sume them, that will sure­ly treat with this is­sue, Hinds said.”

Agri­cul­ture Of­fi­cer II Us­am Stephens, while re­mind­ing Hinds that hu­mans are a species of their own, did not en­dorse this.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Min­is­ter, I hear what you are say­ing and while Tri­nis eat al­most any­thing, on be­half of the min­istry I am con­strained to make such a rec­om­men­da­tion.”