In a move towards preparing for a disaster, the non-governmental organisation SEWA TT staged a full-scale emergency simulation on Sunday, mimicking the chaos and urgency of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
Scattered debris, mock casualties crying out, and volunteers springing into action all formed part of the simulation, designed to test the mettle of SEWA TT’s Emergency Response Team.
President Revan Teelucksingh said it’s all about preparing his team for when disaster strikes.
“This simulation of a massive earthquake of magnitude 7.8 where there is a major natural disaster and now our team has to respond in terms of search and rescue, sizing up what is happening.”
Fifty-two volunteers from North and South Trinidad converged at the NGO’s headquarters in Piarco to build resilient communities that can respond swiftly when professional help is delayed.
“We are not the Fire Service. We are not the EHS. We are not the Police Service. But our role is to complement them. Sometimes we may be first on the scene just by the fact that a disaster happened close to where we have trained personnel. But our role is to complement them and know what all the procedures are so that we could fall into service.”
Senior Disaster Management Coordinator Jerry David said the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government is backing the initiative through its Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) programme.
“The first person you would see after a major hazard impact is your neighbours. Because of this, we have to train people in their neighbourhoods so that they will be able to help each other because there will never be enough professional responders to help everyone.”
He said CERT has trained over 5,000 volunteers in Trinidad over the past 14 years and SEWA TT is now one of its flagship partners.
“My target is to train 10% of the population. In my time, I may not see that. But we have to start someplace. So this year we have trained about 300 people so far. What we do, we equip all the volunteers with what we call PPE bags or backpacks so that they would have what they need, the tools they need, should they have to respond.”
Mr. Teelucksingh said SEWA TT’s vision goes beyond drills, noting that plans are underway for solar-powered communications and long-term food storage.
“If there is a major natural disaster, we could have our communication systems up where we could communicate throughout the entire Trinidad and Tobago. We have our radio frequency. And in the meantime, while we wait on a disaster, we could start preparing freeze-dried foods so that we could store food up to 25 years.”
SEWA TT is also urging more volunteers to lend a hand and corporate T&T to assist in helping the organisation.