Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

As the na­tion copes with rain­fall from suc­ces­sive trop­i­cal waves, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is grap­pling with a short­age of tech­ni­cal staff.

Yes­ter­day, the TTMS again sus­pend­ed its rou­tine fore­cast prod­ucts and ser­vices due to staff short­ages at its Syn­op­tic Fore­cast­ing Branch in Pi­ar­co. In an email to stake­hold­ers, the agency said ser­vices would re­sume at 7.16 pm.

This marks at least the third such dis­rup­tion in re­cent months—a sharp in­crease com­pared to pre­vi­ous years when such in­ter­rup­tions were rare.

Yes­ter­day, the TTMS is­sued on­ly one fore­cast at 5.41 am, as no fore­cast­er or me­te­o­rol­o­gist was on du­ty to pro­vide the sched­uled up­dates at 10 am and 4 pm.

In some in­stances, the TTMS has al­so been short of me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal as­sis­tants or ob­servers—staff re­spon­si­ble for read­ing, record­ing, and dis­sem­i­nat­ing crit­i­cal avi­a­tion da­ta need­ed by pi­lots for safe land­ings and take­offs. This short­age has led to flight de­lays on two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions: once last month and an­oth­er in Ju­ly 2023.

The staffing sit­u­a­tion at the TTMS is a mat­ter of na­tion­al con­cern, as the agency is re­spon­si­ble for is­su­ing ear­ly warn­ing mes­sages re­lat­ed to weath­er and sea con­di­tions. It serves as the pri­ma­ry source of weath­er da­ta for oth­er gov­ern­ment bod­ies and plays an ad­vi­so­ry role in mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance. Op­er­at­ing 24 hours a day, the TTMS al­so func­tions as the fo­cal point for tsuna­mi warn­ing mes­sages.

De­spite this, Caribbean Air­lines and the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) said there was no im­pact on their op­er­a­tions, as con­tin­gen­cies were al­ready in place.

Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said, “I ob­tained Cab­i­net ap­proval for the fill­ing of all out­stand­ing va­can­cies at the TTMS, both con­tract and po­si­tions on the per­ma­nent es­tab­lish­ment.”

He said the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the min­istry, along with her team, had been work­ing to fill the va­can­cies and the con­tract po­si­tions were ad­ver­tised. Gon­za­les ex­pressed sur­prise that the is­sue re­mained un­re­solved since his de­par­ture from the min­istry.

At­tempts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath and Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.