Blaming Govt ‘wrong,’
say Commissioners
PHILIPSBURG--People should not blame government for Saturday’s bad weather and the subsequent flash flooding, stated Commissioners Sarah Wescott-Williams and Franklin Meyers on Wednesday. Wescott-Williams said she would have liked to see an emergency advisory issued Saturday evening.
Refuting the impression created by some that government didn’t act promptly, Wescott-Williams explained at Wednesday’s press briefing that members of the Executive Council had been in constant contact with each other Saturday and Sunday, also during the tours of Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards and Commissioner Roy Marlin to the disaster areas.
The Executive Council during its Tuesday meeting looked “even more closely” at some of the issues that “we have to address” in relation to the flash flooding and government’s response to disasters. She said that although the Lt. Governor had described government’s response as “miscommunication,” Wescott-Williams said she would rather call it “a lack of communication.”
“What we have to research is how and why that came to be. I too now in retrospect would have liked to see an emergency advisory Saturday evening. Fact is that most of us were caught off guard,” said Wescott-Williams.
She said it was the responsibility of government and the media to inform the people in a “very straightforward way of what it is we as an island we had to deal with Saturday evening.”
An issue like how to reach the largest number of persons possible has to be addressed, she said. Information is also needed on the functioning of the Meteorological Office. Wescott-Williams didn’t want to place the issue of the Met Office in the context of personalities, but rather the functioning of the office. She said government still needed answers to that.
According to Commissioner Meyers, the cloudburst happened in a time span of some two hours and even with modern technology it would have been hard to predict where the rain would fall.
The cloudburst and subsequent flooding were not like a hurricane, for which a person can prepare. “It started as a regular rain shower and then got out of hand,” he said, adding that St. Maarten was not immune to natural disasters, which are difficult to predict. He mentioned earthquakes and tsunamis.
But blaming government for Saturday’s events as some have done, he said, was “wrong” and “shameful.” “It’s so easy to point fingers,” he said, suggesting that instead people should “come together” and come up with ideas and suggestions that might contribute to a solution.
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