Gail Alexan­der

More T&T help might be ahead for St Lu­cia. St Lu­cia is fac­ing a (TT) $3 bil­lion–(US) $500 mil­lion–re­con­struc­tion bill to rise from the dev­as­ta­tion which Trop­i­cal storm Tomas in­flict­ed on the lit­tle is­land last week­end. And Gov­ern­ment may be look­ing to see "what­ev­er part" of this it can con­tribute to and help with. St Lu­cian Prime Min­is­ter Stephen­son King yes­ter­day in­formed T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of the re­con­struc­tion cost and showed her first-hand, the de­struc­tion caused by Tomas when Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­it­ed St Lu­cia yes­ter­day.

She told King T&T "will put its help­ing hands for­ward and see what­ev­er part of the re­con­struc­tion bill it could con­tribute to and as­sist with." Sev­en peo­ple are con­firmed dead in St Lu­cia as a re­sult of Tomas' pas­sage and sev­en more peo­ple are still miss­ing and feared dead. Yes­ter­day's tour by the T&T group–in­clud­ing pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers–which Per­sad-Bisses­sar head­ed, fol­lowed as­sis­tance which Gov­ern­ment sent to the is­land ear­li­er in the week. The Prime Min­is­ter ar­rived hours ahead of a sec­ond ship­ment of sup­plies from T&T which steamed in­to St Lu­cia aboard a T&T Coast Guard ves­sel yes­ter­day evening.

Yes­ter­day's tour con­firmed that Tomas in­flict­ed heavy wa­ter dam­age which the is­land was still try­ing to rise above, six days af­ter the storm. While the cap­i­tal of Cas­tries has been cleared, out­ly­ing ar­eas, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the north and in the Soufriere dis­trict, were hard hit and still re­main heav­i­ly af­fect­ed. Land­slides, fall­en trees and logs, downed pow­er lines and mud, silt and slush are every­where in those ar­eas. Road­ways al­so have caved in.

In one north­ern area of Bex­on–i n St Lu­cia's Cen­tral Range–a riv­er was so swollen by the heavy rains that it broke its banks, changed course and took over a school's play­ing field. Tour­ing those ter­ri­to­ries, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so brought her own brand of Di­vali light to the is­land yes­ter­day by hand­ing over ham­pers to res­i­dents of north­ern St Lu­cia which she vis­it­ed. Be­fore the tour, King, thank­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her ef­fort, said: "We've been speak­ing in re­cent days and I got the feel­ing of your con­cern and your de­ter­mi­na­tion to help in one way or an­oth­er. Im­me­di­ate­ly on telling you of our con­cerns, with­in 24 hours you put to­geth­er a ship­ment of wa­ter for us." Com­mu­ni­ties in St Lu­cia's in­te­ri­or were tremen­dous­ly af­fect­ed where in­fra­struc­ture, prop­er­ty and agri­cul­ture were con­cerned.

These fall­en ba­nana trees are on­ly a tiny frac­tion of the num­ber of such downed trees which pro­duce St Lu­cia's main source of in­come. This year's crop has been dev­as­tat­ed by Trop­i­cal Storm Tomas.

King added: "It's had a very big im­pact on our econ­o­my. It has wiped out 100 per cent of our main agri­cul­tur­al prod­uct–ba­nanas–and 60 per cent of our oth­er crops. "So with­in the next three months, we're like­ly to have a food cri­sis." He said his Gov­ern­ment hoped to ac­ti­vate mech­a­nisms to help ba­nana farm­ers back in­to ac­tion with­in six to nine months and al­so to get the oth­ers back on track to sup­ply St Lu­cia's tourism sec­tor. King said St Lu­cia's north and south have been cut off from each oth­er due dam­aged sus­tained by its road net­work. This has af­fect­ed trans­port of goods and busi­ness over­all. "Wa­ter is a ma­jor prob­lem since the is­land's pro­duc­tion lev­el has fall­en from eight mil­lion gal­lons to five mil­lion and tur­bid­i­ty is af­fect­ing cur­rent sup­ply." King added. He said an en­tire Soufriere com­mu­ni­ty would have to be re­lo­cat­ed since it was wiped out by mud­slides.

He added: "This is a pic­ture of great chal­lenge. One that needs the lev­el of sup­port that our friends, broth­ers and sis­ters can bring. "The re­con­struc­tion ef­fort will run to the tune of well over at least (US)$500 mil­lion in re­build­ing schools, build­ing new com­mu­ni­ties, in­stalling in­fra­struc­ture and get­ting the coun­try back on its feet. "Bring­ing back the eco­nom­ic and so­cial in­fra­struc­ture... we're talk­ing a re­con­struc­tion bill of the vicin­i­ty of (US)$500 mil­lion." King said that would span over a year of con­struc­tion. Thank­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar for "com­ing and pour­ing out your heart to St Lu­cia," King said: "We know T&T stands with us as a sis­ter na­tion." King said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was giv­ing from "her home" to St Lu­cia and his is­land could not ex­pect her to give all. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said no strings were at­tached to T&T's hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid.

A boot­ed-up T&T's Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, right, be­ing shown dam­aged ar­eas by Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cas­tries South, Guy Joseph, who is al­so St Lu­cia's Min­is­ter of Works and Pub­lic Utili­ities.

For the re­con­struc­tion ef­fort, she said sup­plies that were need­ed for hous­ing and road­ways would be made avail­able to what­ev­er ex­tent was pos­si­ble. Per­sad-Bisses­sar told King: "You have giv­en us a very large bill, it sounds like about (TT)$3 bil­lion but I know you don't in­tend for all of that to rest on our shoul­ders." King replied: "Ab­solute­ly not..." Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: " But we will put out our help­ing hands for­ward and see what­ev­er part of that we can con­tribute to and to as­sist." She said T&T was com­mit­ted to the ef­fort and lo­cal com­pa­nies were keen to help St Lu­cia. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T could al­so sup­ply hous­ing and con­struc­tion as­sis­tance with ex­per­tise and sup­plies where T&T had them.

King dis­missed con­tro­ver­sy about her ini­tial state­ments of as­sis­tance. King said: "Some­time we have to be tol­er­ant and more un­der­stand­ing of what re­gion­al lead­ers say. "What Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said to us is that she will give from out of her 'home', but may not be able to shop for us. "That's the con­di­tion she's of­fer­ing. Many times in in­ter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics we al­so have to ac­cept con­di­tions from or­gan­i­sa­tions or groups." Fol­low­ing the tour, NH chair­man Emile Elias said pri­vate sec­tor mem­bers would wait to hear what Goven­r­ment need­ed to of­fer. He said great as­sis­tance in re­build­ing com­mu­ni­ties could be pro­vid­ed. Fire One's An­dre Abra­ham al­so said the vis­it had pro­vid­ed more en­cour­age­ment to help St Lu­cia.

The tour­ing group:

The Prime Min­is­ter's hus­band Dr Gre­go­ry Bisses­sar, NH In­ter­na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive head, Emile Elias, Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mikey Joseph, Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion chair­man Fer­oz Khan, TTMA's Greig Laugh­lin, TCL's Rawl­ins Bertrand, Fire One Fire­works' An­dre Abra­ham, Blue Wa­ters' Do­minic Hadeed, T&T Cham­ber's Mooni­lal Lalchan, De­fence Force mem­bers, Min­is­ters Stephen Cadiz, Roodal Mooni­lal, Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Em­manuel George, HDC's Jear­lean John and T&T me­dia.