Who is popular today?

DR STEPHEN RAMROOP
ARE WE ready for a major disaster in TT? As we approach another general election we must look closely at our readiness as a country for a massive disaster impact such as an earthquake or the more frequent episodes of flooding that we experience annually all year round. We as a nation must decide who we must put in power to strengthen our current disaster risk-reduction systems and improve national resilience in every sector and community.
Unfortunately, the pathway is not simple. Due to the way our population votes, we are always dependent on the so-called marginal or fringe voters who select a political party based on merit and their expectations and experience, and because roughly half of the other constituencies are safely divided equally between the two major parties.
Disasters will affect our country. This is a fact. Investments in disaster readiness are not realised until several years later and this is not politically suitable. Thus, we recognise that there is global tendency for politicians to focus on humanitarian services when a disaster strikes rather than allocate significant funding towards structural and non-structural mitigation programmes.
Handing out hampers in a flood-stricken area has become a regular occurrence among politicians even at their own risk. Having regular drills and resilience-building programmes, along with short-, medium- and long-term structural measures that are evidence-based and that have been shown to be statistically significant in reducing risk in disaster-affected communities based on empirical scientific data and studies carried out in several disaster affected states globally is mandatory.
Post-covid disaster risk-reduction strategies would have been significantly reduced because of funding issues. The Donald Trump administration in the US has seemingly identified the problems that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been experiencing and wants to remove this entity. The PNM government over the past ten years has diverted much of the national responsibility to the Local Government Ministry and reduced the oversight of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM).
Although this is a good policy that strengthens local resilience and is highly acceptable, the need for central 24/7 situational awareness is mandatory and must not be taken lightly. Most of the disaster management units (DMU) of local government cannot scale up a national emergency relief effort as they are all in silos and thus not part of the national intelligence structure 24/7.
Just getting in contact with a hotline number means that someone affected by a disaster on a fringe border of two municipalities have two numbers to call in addition to fire and police. In fact, there are over 29 numbers that are posted in a national disaster situation in this country including Tobago. This is not an appropriate system for emergency communication based on all the scientific empirical data we have now in disaster risk planning. We must have only one emergency number, eg 911.
The presence of the ODPM at a national operations centre (NOC) is mandatory. This allows all public health and disaster-related agencies to be represented by the ODPM 24/7. If a situation is evolving over time, such as a diving emergency, malaria, Ebola, measles or covid19 outbreak, the NOC will become aware of this at any time of the day or night, public holiday or workday.
This is extremely important as intelligence at the NOC is shared by other national security agencies such as police, SSA, military divisions, Civil Aviation Authority and Airports Authority, etc. If a port officer picks up malaria on a ship at 2 am. this must be reported to the NOC, and this is flagged by the ODPM representative there who can alert the chief medical officer.
This works well if an airplane pilot has identified a potential disease that can affect our entire human, animal, and plant population in the middle of the night when all public officers are sleeping.
If an earthquake impacts our country at 2 am we must be able to mobilise an instant response. Imagine if we must mobilise 24 municipalities and Tobago immediately with the use of satellite phones/HAM radio if all internet and phone lines are down. In the US states are much larger and can do without FEMA, but not TT.
We urge voters in our marginal seats to cast their votes wisely and consider which political party wishes to improve resiliency by creating the necessary legislation to make the ODPM a central authority for disaster risk reduction nationally, and strengthen its ability to have 24-hour situational awareness by having a properly functioning NOC.
Consider the ability of that political party to recognise the tremendous good work of the ODPM in the past and of the DMUs of local government, which has been achieved with little resources allocated for mitigation programmes that, though not politically beneficial in the short term, will save lives, property, and livelihoods in the future.
Consider the ability of that party to strengthen the emergency communication system by improvement of the existing 911 system so that everyone has immediate access to all the emergency services via one number, rather than 29 that would not work in a catastrophic event for sure.
Improvement of our disaster risk reduction strategies is imperative in order to strengthen our disaster readiness and politicians must recognise that in the next ten years climate change, the global impact of nationalism, reduced global funding and weakening supply chains will affect our national ability to respond to disasters.
Politicians must assign task-related competencies in key healthcare, disaster risk management and national security positions and try their best to reduce political appointments in these key critical infrastructure services and systems as much as possible.
Dr Stephen Ramroop is the past CEO of the ODPM
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