Al-Rawi: Government preparing in case weather alert rises to red

MINISTER of Local Government Faris Al-Rawi says the bad weather over the past few days has resulted in 137 "significant" landslips across the country, with 83 major flooding events and 31 fallen trees.

Given this, while he hopes the adverse-weather alerts are not raised to red, he said government is preparing for that possibility.

He was speaking at a virtual press conference on Monday morning at which he updates the public on government's efforts as the country faces orange-level adverse-weather and riverine-flood alerts.

He said some shelters have already been activated.

In the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation, he said there are ten people at the Plum Mitan Community Centre. In the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, there are two families at the Misir Community Centre.

In addition, the Vishnu Boys' College will be made available if needed in the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation, while the Upper El Dorado and Tunapuna Community Centres are also open.

He said Trinidad and Tobago is currently experiencing 190 per cent of the average rainfall "within a 30-year average."

Al-Rawi urged the public to remember this, "even though you may see a break in the rain or it appears to be just a drizzle.

"The mission right now is to ensure we don't have loss of lives, that we better mitigate, or make better, the situation with what we can."

He said there have been a total of 42 evacuations so far, but "quite a few people" opted not to leave their homes.

He added that the predictive model of preparations for flooding is "out the door," since so much is changing rapidly owing to climate change.

"...Which is very real, which is not an excuse, but it's a reality.

"There are multiple plans for different situations."

He added, "Behind the scenes, we've been creating all the preparations for (a) red-level (adverse weather alert)."

He said he looks forward to "drier days."