With the 2026 rainy season in full swing, Line Minister for the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM), Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander, says State agencies are hard at work to minimise the negative effects of flooding.
He said preparations and coordination have been ongoing to address flood risks during the rainy season.
“We are working together, and we have been working all through the dry season. We have systems in place to detect overloaded rivers and streams, floods where floods are expected and all that. So we are working quite well together.”
Minister Alexander noted that certain public behaviours would need to change to limit the level of flooding the country experiences during the rainy season.
“Some of the problems is that we as a people, we seem not to wait for the garbage collectors to collect our stuff but to throw it down the drains, which has contributed to many of what we see in the past. So we are hoping to change that. The rural government has cleaned some of the drains together with Ministry of Works and all of that, so we are hoping for a better rainy season this year. But, again, no guarantee because the weather changes from time to time. Climate change is real.”
The Homeland Security Minister spoke with the media following the opening ceremony of the 16th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of CDEMA in Port of Spain on Friday.