Port of Spain City Corporation reviews disaster plan

Last week's gridlock traffic in the capital city caused by flooding has prompted the Port of Spain City Corporation to do a "comprehensive" review of its disaster response plan.

Newly appointed mayor Chinua Alleyne announced this during the council's second statutory meeting on Wednesday.

Exactly aweek ago thousands of drivers and pedestrians were stranded for hours in and around Port of Spain by flash floods.

Speaking at the meeting on Wednesday, Alleyne said a meeting was held on Tuesday with all stakeholders including representatives from the municipal police, the defence force, technocrats from the Ministry of Works and Transport, and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management, among others. Included in the review, he said, will also be an analysis of the city's traffic-management plan.

"We are doing a review, given the new circumstances, with the things we have in place.

"Are they working? And if they're not working, what changes need to be made?

"What new technologies are available to us that may not have been available five years ago or ten years ago, and how can we procure that technology and implement it?"

He said the review team will meet internally over the next two-three weeks, after which there will be a "comprehensive" meeting with stakeholders.

"The first step is reviewing the traffic-management plan, and whilst the team is working on the traffic-management plan, another team will be working on the drainage in the areas that we think are the high-risk areas for street flooding," he said.

Given the levels of development in Port of Spain and its geography, Alleyne said infrastructural work will be required to alleviate flooding.

"As often as works are done to mitigate against flooding, once we have private developers and other developers continuing to develop areas of land, the city has to continue its response to the changes in the environment. That is what we were discussing yesterday: what are our new responses we need to have," he said.

He added that the infrastructural work will require more time to implement than any changes to the traffic-management plan.

"Rest assured, there are some measures that we can implement that can bring some relief," he said.