After last week’s flooding, firefighters hiked over rubble to saved a trapped resident who was in distress. Other public officers worked overtime at personal risk to restore essential services. Community members came together to support families who lost everything. Volunteers rallied to shovel mud and debris from homes and streets across the territory.
Such stories have been a silver lining in the dark clouds that dumped as much as 16 inches of rain on the territory in 17 hours last week. Kudos to the many residents who assisted during and after the disaster. They may well be the reason that no lives were lost.
That said, the damage to many homes and lives will be lasting, and it is important that the support continue over the long term.
Meanwhile, there is much work to do, including completing assessments that thankfully are already under way. During this process, there are various questions to ask.
Given that the flooding took the territory by surprise, was there a way to predict it earlier and warn the public sooner? The Department of Disaster Management did issue a warning on the morning of the day the flooding started, but it predicted only “partly cloudy” conditions with “scattered showers” and “a chance of isolated thunderstorms.” Not until the water was rising that afternoon was an official flash flood watch announced, followed quickly by a flash flood warning.
It may be that the weather system was so unpredictable that more notice was impossible, but in the coming days officials should consider whether there was a way to provide the community with a more substantive heads-up.
Even if they had done so, however, would residents have paid attention? Probably not. DDM perennially warns that weather is unpredictable and that the territory should be prepared at all times — especially during the Atlantic Hurricane Season — and residents perennially carry on with business as usual. The community as a whole needs to do better.
The cause of the flooding also should be probed carefully in the coming weeks. Some of it was doubtlessly unavoidable in such heavy rainfall. But too often, such disasters in the VI are greatly exacerbated by manmade factors: trash-blocked ghuts; illegal or inadvisable development; poorly constructed drainage systems; and others.
It is good news that the government has already brought in experts to assess the storm’s effects. But for results, leaders need to ensure that such experts’ advice is followed going forward.
Related efforts were under way before last week’s rains. This year, for example, DDM and other agencies commissioned a flood risk study of the Road Town area, which is scheduled for completion in early 2018. This research likely will prove invaluable, and we hope it will be finished on time and made public straightaway.
Another positive move is the national physical development plan that is currently in the works.
Ultimately, only proper long-term planning will ensure that the territory is optimally prepared for a major flood.
In fact, one clear example of the benefits of such planning can be seen in the wake of last week’s rains. After the 2010 flooding associated with Tropical Storm Otto, several roads around the territory suffered extensive damage. Many of them were rebuilt with a loan obtained from the Caribbean Development Bank, which required that the projects be tendered and that drainage studies and other research be carried out before work commenced. Last week, those new roads fared very well, even as others were wracked by floodwater. There is a cogent lesson here.
With global warming expected to bring more major storms in the future, such lessons matter now more than ever. The territory should consider them carefully.
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