Heed warning
A Government Minister is of the opinion that last November’s major power outages should be an eye opener for Barbadians.
“We need to be prepared for every eventuality,” Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn insisted.
He was referring to the incident where the Barbados Light & Power Company (BL&P), a subsidiary of Canada’s Emera Inc., suffered an engine failure, and subsequent outages forced schools and some businesses to close. The water supply was also hit hard for a number of days.
Addressing the St. James Central District Emergency Organisation (DEO)’s Annual General Meeting at Queen’s College on Sunday evening, he recalled “The weather was fantastic, the bluest skies those two, three days and the fact that there was no significant weather event around, yet the country had almost been crippled, should signal to all as to why you should always be prepared.
“And the danger that we have with respect to the way that we do our disaster preparation is that as the weather person announces that a system is coming, we start to get into “a zone”. And we respond only to “named storms”. But, there was no name for that “storm” last year when the electricity was out for three days.”
The Minister further said that the event exposed the country’s vulnerability. He also noted that some persons only store water as the storm approaches.
“Which is part of how we have done things,” he pointed out.
“So, I hope that the country would have learned a lesson that you should always be as prepared as you can be, in order to mitigate against any circumstance.”
Minister Straughn shared with the DEO that the Mia Mottley-led administration has sought to carry out a number of initiatives in order to ensure that Barbados is as ready as it can be for any disaster.
Moreover, he took the opportunity to commend the St. James Central DEO, which for the past 17 years has engaged to offer the varied communities, businesses and private sectors along the west coast and its environs, the best concepts and practices of comprehensive disaster management.
“The work of the DEO and the way that you engage and communicate across not just St. James Central, but certainly providing the leadership that is required to revive participation at the DEO level across the country, I think your organisation is certainly the example for others to follow,” he expressed. (TL)