Trinidad and Tobago is taking another step towards disaster readiness.
This, as members of the public sector and the National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Multi-Sectoral Committee engaged in extensive consultations on Thursday on the development of the country’s National Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems Policy.
CEO of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM), Retired Major General Rodney Smart, said the country is facing increasingly frequent hazards such as intense rainfall and mounting impacts of climate change. He said this means that something more than a hazard-specific response is necessary.
“We must move toward an integrated, multi-hazard early warning system that brings together risk knowledge, monitoring, forecasting, communication, and community preparedness across all sectors, all scales, and all parts of our society.”
He explained the aim of the project: “The project principally aims to develop a national integrated early warning system, which would enable agencies to deliver timelier and more accurate multi-hazard information and notifications to the national community.”
The meeting brought together voices from across sectors to ensure the policy is inclusive, practical, and tailored to the country’s unique vulnerabilities.
Policy Consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank, Elizabeth Emanuel, said in order to ensure inclusivity, it’s important to analyse hazards that will affect Trinidad and Tobago separately.
“What about Kick ’em Jenny? How many people have heard of Kick ’em Jenny? The submarine volcano. That could potentially impact Tobago, but it’s far away from Trinidad. So we need to monitor, and we need to look at our countries as Trinidad and Tobago, if we want to be fully inclusive and we really and truly want to have this multi-hazard integrated system.”
The consultation, which was held at the ODPM National Emergency Operations Centre in Mausica, is one of several that will take place this week.