Hurricane Tomas

I write this article with a heart of thanks towards God for sparing us from the effects of Tomas.  After suffering through the effects of Nicole and seeing all of the damage that was incurred, it is a relief that there was minimal rain and wind.

There are those who think that the Office of Disaster Preparation and Emergency Management (ODPEM) overreacted to the threat in its mobilisation of resources to deal with the possible effects of Tomas.  I am not one of those persons and I want to state that ODPEM did a great job in being prepared for the storm.  It is not uncommon for me to tell you that one of the key areas in financial planning is preparing for emergencies.  In that regard the island was put on alert, heavy duty equipment was placed in strategic locations.  The hurricane shelters were opened especially in the parishes of St. Thomas and Portland and were able to receive those persons who chose to leave their house ahead of time.  In fact I do not recall a time in our history when we were better prepared for a storm.

Now some argue that this was not necessary because Tomas came and went and nothing happened.  This way of thinking is flawed because one does not measure the success of ODPEM by whether or not there is damage to the country.  The aim of ODPEM is to mitigate the damage that might be caused by a disaster as well as to mobilise the clean up after it is over.  The fact is that storms are unpredictable and we could have had anything from no storm to a category 5 hurricane.  It is important to take all necessary steps in getting ready for an emergency as doing nothing will usually result in worse consequences.  One only has to look at the pictures from St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Barbados to see what might have happened here.

In order to prepare for an emergency one has to spend time and money on obtaining the things needed if such a disaster were to occur.  To argue that this is money wasted because nothing happened is counter productive.  I am sure that the same people who are complaining now would be the same persons who would complain that the Government knew a storm was coming and did nothing to prepare for it.

It seems as some have still not learned the lesson of preparing for emergencies.  Let the voices of those of us who see wisdom in the need to prepare drown out the sounds of those who seek only to find fault.