Respect flood victims’ dignity

ALLAN Stewart, director of the Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), is urging Tobagonians to respect the dignity of distressed citizens who experienced losses in the aftermath of the extensive flooding in Trinidad.

He made the appeal on Monday at the official start of the Love Is Giving relief initiative, organised by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Tobago Entrepreneurs Business Network.

“Straight up, we need to respect the dignity of people,” he told Newsday.

“Some people use this opportunity to get rid of things they don’t want – expired goods. So pay attention to those things, let us be dignified even in doing so.”

Saying he was speaking from experience, Stewart said: “I learnt this lesson quite well. So its like ‘no used clothes’. I don’t want to hear no stories that I just wear this two times and it get small for me.”

Stewart said people should throw away their camphor-smelling clothes instead of donating it.

He said toiletries, canned foods and sanitising agents are items that will be needed.

Stewart said seven venues have been identified as drop-off points for the relief initiative: 91.9FM (Crown Point); Bella Cosmetics (Scarborough); Manswell Villa (Goodwood); Luxury Beauty Exclusive (Crown Point); Tobago Animal Hospital (Government House Road); TEMA Emergency Operations Centre (Fairfield Complex); and TEMA Warehouse (Signal Hill).

The first shipment of items was expected to be sent to Trinidad yesterday.

The TEMA official said although Tobago escaped the devastation experienced in Trinidad, damage assessments in Tobago were continuing through the Division of Infrastructure, Quarries and the Environment and social services.

“So, we have verified some of the reports and also ensuring they are legitimate.”

As of Monday, he said 20 reports pertaining to residential landslides and flooding had come to their attention. There are also two reports of boats being damaged.

Stewart said it was difficult at this point to quantify the extent of damage.

“It is difficult to give a dollar value because then you have to divide that into two areas. Apart from just the residential occurrences, you also have investigations from the road network that might have been damaged by water.”

He said the action plan from the various co-ordinating agencies went well.

“It allowed us to mobilise certain resources, pre-position resources in a particular way, and where shelters were concerned, we identified eight shelters that would have been placed on stand-by if need be.”