Solutions for PoS disaster plan

Port of Spain Mayor Chinua Alleyne sounded a positive note for his administration when he announced plans for a comprehensive review of its disaster response plan.

The new mayor has sensibly targeted a review of traffic management and drainage following the recent flooding of the city centre.

Identifying high-risk areas shouldn't be difficult, given the recent history of flash flooding and the city zones known to be affected.

Mr Alleyne noted at Wednesday's statutory meeting of the city council that he was keen to review new technologies and implement new techniques that might bring an overdue change to city drainage issues.

It's an approach that should find wider purchase in governance. In the face of the changing profile of flooding, the response to natural disasters has remained the same. The reach of disaster preparedness must go beyond palliative measures mustered after the destruction wreaked by heavy rains or storm conditions to address endemic problems of poor drainage and inadequate water retention systems.

The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management has been positioned as the oversight agency for first responders, but it must become a more decisive participant in disaster preparation.

Was Mr Alleyne planning to include the ODPM in his review of the city's disaster plan? If the agency wasn't an automatic choice for the deliberations, then it should be even clearer that the ODPM must become a proactive, even predictive participant in disaster planning while continuing its role as the umbrella agency for first responders.

In May 2022, during national disaster prevention and preparedness month, the national security minister expressed confidence in the ability of emergency authorities to respond to natural disasters effectively. That wasn't in evidence on October 18 after less than an hour of heavy rainfall crippled traffic in and out of Port of Spain (PoS) long hours. Former PoS mayor Joel Martinez hit the roof in November 2022 after viewing flooding on Abbatoir Road behind the PoS market and failing to get a straight answer on the cause from his CEO or his chief engineer.

It's clear that drainage management remains both a pressing issue and one thats under-resourced in the Ministry of Works. It's a problem that should command the attention of a flooding taskforce within the ministry, specialists who can analyse the causes of persistent flooding and design solutions that proactively manage the problem.

By placing disaster response higher on the city corporation's agenda, Mr Alleyne is opening a can of worms that reaches beyond the boundaries of PoS. But if his efforts encourage a more results focused approach to drainage challenges in the city, the solutions may improve planning for other flood-prone areas in TT.