Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar leaves to­day for St Lu­cia to get a first-hand view of the dam­age caused by Hur­ri­cane Tomas last week. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was in­vit­ed to that coun­try by its Prime Min­is­ter Stephen­son King. She said her team would com­prise per­son­nel re­quest­ed by King, in­clud­ing a team from the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) and mil­i­tary of­fi­cials. She said re­lief sup­plies housed at a Ma­coya ware­house were be­ing shipped to St Lu­cia from to­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said King told her the is­land's wa­ter sys­tem had been dis­rupt­ed and he asked for wa­ter sup­plies from T&T. She said Blue Wa­ters and oth­er pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies have joined with the Gov­ern­ment for this coun­try's hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid ini­tia­tive, Help­ing Hands. Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, 27,000 pounds of wa­ter, mat­tress­es, food­stuff, med­ica­tion, snacks, chil­dren books, cloth­ing, con­struc­tion ma­te­r­i­al and oth­er re­lief sup­plies are be­ing sent to the coun­tries in the re­gion af­fect­ed by Tomas. (RL)