THE LEVEL of devastation wrought by the flood rains is slowly unfolding. Precise estimates will take some time as the priority must be on emergency relief of those who have been flooded out of their homes or lost their means of livelihood. The landslides, flooded roads, the loss of crops and livestock add up to general economic dislocation.
The machinery of disaster management more often than not is geared for natural disasters such as hurricanes. It is not often that seasonal rains assume the intensity of more than a week of continual downpour. Disaster pre-planning must now seek to minimise damage by advocating stricter attention to the utilisation of land. Much of the damage to housing may be traced to bad drainage or ad hoc location of units.
At the time of last year's floods in the eastern end of the island, concerns were expressed about some of the areas where people had established communities. Some of these areas were found to be susceptible to land slippage and flooding and were under constant threat of devastation by the forces of nature. The concern was whether or not people should be allowed to continue to live in these areas or should be resettled to more suitable locations.
During these recent rains a woman in an affected community said in a television interview that she had been flooded out on four occasions in recent times and had now come to the conclusion that where she lived was not fit for human habitation.
The oft-repeated story of blocked drains and of gullies filled with debris has been identified as a contributory factor in some of the recent flooding. There have been other reports of roads and other construction changing the course of natural drainage, and the denuded hillsides have been a factor in some of the landslides.
Surely the time has come to take a closer look at land utilisation policies and to develop and employ strategies, which work in harmony with instead of against the forces of nature. Man is forever the loser in any such contest.
