Regional meteorological stakeholders are joining those responsible for disaster management in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for two workshops this week.
The focus of the workshops is to implement a new tool for the region.
Science and Technology Officer from the Caribbean Meteorological Organization, Kenneth Kerr, explained the new tool.
“The Common Alerting Protocol or CAP, as it is known, is centrally a standardized way of creating and sharing emergency issued warnings. The important thing is one authoritative warning can be distributed through many channels, through the television, through radio, through websites, social media, mobile phones and other platforms. And so for the Caribbean we face multiple, a multipicity of hazards. The CAP help us to get consistent and trusted information to people quickly where ever they are.”
Mr. Kerr highlighted how the Common Alerting Protocol will change the way the region responds to natural disasters moving forward.
“We are bringing the meteorological service and the disaster management agencies and othe stakeholders together so that we can move from simply saying a hazard is coming to saying this is what could happen, this is who could be affected and this is what you should do because the hazard may mean different things for different sectors, for different people, so we need the conversation from not just what is coming but what is going to happen.”
The workshops began on Monday August 17 and will run until Friday August 28 across four Caribbean countries.