Facing the inevitable

Where were you when it happened? “It” refers to the 6.9 on the Richter scale earth tremor that TT experienced a few weeks ago. Just before I sat down to tap this column out I had the same conversation as I did a dozen other times since the unforgettable shake up. Even the most alpha males admit to being spooked.

I was all prepared to bury the terrifying memory, but the innumerable aftershocks are making that impossible. There is a constant sense that the furniture is jumping, for nanoseconds only, but putting me off balance, like coming off a boat after a long time in choppy waters and being very slow to find one’s land legs. I thought it was just paranoia, or possibly lingering trauma from lying under a table with my ancient mother, feeling the floor writhe beneath us, thinking we were riding an out-of-control camel with four twisted ankles, or sitting on the back of a fiery serpent that was moving too fast, knowing that we were, finally and summarily, heading in the direction of meeting our maker. But, the perpetual tremors that we have lived with all our lives are no longer so subtle as to go largely undetected. The earth is moving below our feet and it is not a pang of passion. Scientists say the big one is yet to come.

The post-quake, feel-good social media messages implying that “God is a Trini” in order to explain the almost inexplicably small degree of damage, given the duration and intensity of the tremor, did not cheer me up for long. In fact, they had the opposite effect once the nervous giggle had subsided. I think of the joke about the man who returns to the temple week after week, begging God to let him win that week’s lottery, armed with a litany of good reasons for God’s charity to be bestowed upon him, until one day the voice booms down from the heavens, begging back, “Well, give me a chance, man; buy a lottery ticket.”

It is true that no buildings collapsed but we need to give ourselves a real chance of surviving the next big earthquake, and, from what I see, that is not what we are doing. It is exceedingly misguided to suggest that our buildings are safe simply because they did not collapse last time. They did not collapse because the tremor was deep and the epicentre was over seventy kilometres away. Those are the facts. The frightening experience should be regarded as a sample of what lies in store. I believe we know that, but there appears to be mass inertia, probably because the lesson we learned is so horrendously potent that we cannot think through the problem. Usually, when one does not know what to do it is best to do nothing, but not in this case. The question is what?

I too have inertia: The glass on my glass-fronted cupboards must be taped up and the door handles tied together, top-heavy items of furniture should be strapped onto the walls and heavy objects moved to lower levels, but it has not been done. The bigger task of assessing the ability of my house to withstand a great seismological challenge is daunting and, to me, every bit more elementary. Can the building be retrofitted to improve its foundations, if necessary? Are the thin cracks just superficial or are the walls compromised? Was the house properly built in the first place? These are overwhelming questions because the answers may open up such an unsavoury can of worms that it might be better to take one’s chances and believe in that hotline to the Almighty.

Unfortunately, the state is following this course of inaction. Apart from OPDM disaster tips, the lack of preparedness at the TT national level is dumbfounding. For example, does anyone know if there are set disaster relief shelters anywhere in earthquake proof buildings? Do evacuation procedures exist? Are our hospitals equipped to deal with such high level emergency relief? In the USA, individual states have their own plans and where there is none, the Federal Environment Protection Agency (FEMA) requires state and local government workers to be OSHA trained, and equipped with disaster supplies kits. FEMA can also train businesses in workplace disaster preparedness. In their outreach programme, workers are taught to provide skilled support services, eg, demolition, debris removal, site clean-up services etc. In addition, FEMA, the US Geological Society, the National Science Foundation and other institutions support Shake Out, an annual global earthquake drill for which businesses and other organisations can register and participate for free. On our shaky island we must prepare individually but we need similar preparation at national level, even if God is a Trini.