WITHOUT MAKING landfall in Jamaica Hurricane Michelle has dealt a devastating blow to sections of the island with more than a week of flood rains.
The full extent of casualties and property damage is still being assessed; but the scale of obvious dislocation and suffering has prompted the Government to order islandwide relief efforts.
This episode of flood disaster raises questions about the effectiveness of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM). In theory an agency with this responsibility can only do what its name implies: prepare the populace for impending disaster.
We think the ODPEM does a commendable job by way of timely advisories to the public, the preparation of relief centres and such other facilities as necessary. Where the work of the ODPEM may be undermined is in the failure of municipal and other agencies to maintain an adequate programme of cleaning drains, preventing deforestation and other practices which damage the environment. Surveys have been done, weaknesses identified, but there is no follow-up.
In assessing the destruction it would be useful to determine where bad drainage and other neglect may have escalated the damage. In this connection the behaviour of people in communities, in particular those adjacent to gullies and drains which are misused for dumping garbage, should also be assessed. Too often those who protest about the flooding of their homes have contributed to their own discomfiture.
Another aspect of this hurricane season is the performance of the National Meteorological Service. Some persons have been critical of the service for what they see as unduly alarming the public about the approach of a hurricane. We disagree with the criticism as being misplaced and prompted simply by the inconvenience of emergency shopping which turns out to be unnecessary.
Weather prediction is at best imprecise; even computer models of the track of a hurricane are often at variance. In the end the old cliché is useful: it is better to be safe than sorry.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
