Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Less than 24 hours af­ter tor­na­do-like winds tore through sec­tions of West­moor­ings North and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment con­firmed that cleanup and restora­tion works were com­plet­ed and pow­er was re­stored to near­ly all af­fect­ed house­holds.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen said as­sess­ments by the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s (DM­BC) Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit de­ter­mined that 16 homes were af­fect­ed by the un­usu­al weath­er event on Tues­day, which caused to­tal roof loss in some cas­es and par­tial struc­tur­al dam­age in oth­ers.

Both Diego Mar­tin May­or Akeilah Glas­gow and Diego Mar­tin West MP Hans Des Vi­gnes were on the ground co­or­di­nat­ing re­lief ef­forts and en­gag­ing with res­i­dents as cleanup op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued.

May­or Glas­gow said the DM­BC ac­ti­vat­ed its dis­as­ter re­sponse im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing re­ports of the storm’s im­pact on Tues­day.

“From the mo­ment the in­ci­dent hap­pened, we ac­ti­vat­ed our dis­as­ter unit,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

“Coun­cil­lor Am­ber Caines was on the ground al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, and our teams were mo­bil­is­ing equip­ment, reach­ing out to oth­er cor­po­ra­tions for sup­port, and mak­ing sure res­i­dents knew help was on the way.”

Glas­gow ex­plained that the cor­po­ra­tion’s re­sponse fol­lows a struc­tured process—dis­patch­ing field of­fi­cers, co­or­di­nat­ing with emer­gency agen­cies, and de­ploy­ing crit­i­cal equip­ment such as trucks and back­hoes swift­ly.

“One of the res­i­dents told me the re­sponse was like North Amer­i­ca, and that made me proud be­cause our cor­po­ra­tion re­sponds the same way to any dis­as­ter, no mat­ter the area,” she added.

By yes­ter­day morn­ing, cor­po­ra­tion crews were back in the af­fect­ed ar­eas clear­ing fall­en trees, re­mov­ing de­bris, and con­duct­ing wel­fare checks. Glas­gow com­mend­ed coun­cil­lor Caines for main­tain­ing close con­tact with res­i­dents.

“I was re­al­ly heart­ened to hear res­i­dents speak high­ly of coun­cil­lor Caines,” she said.

“She’s in all the com­mu­ni­ty What­sApp groups, she knows her res­i­dents, and that’s the kind of con­nec­tion we aim for in pub­lic ser­vice.”

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism that lo­cal of­fi­cials were ab­sent from ear­ly me­dia cov­er­age, Glas­gow said the fo­cus was on ac­tion rather than ap­pear­ances.

“When you take the oath of of­fice, you hold a Bible and promise to serve,” she said.

“That’s what I did yes­ter­day. My job was to get to the peo­ple, re­as­sure them, and get help where it was need­ed most.”

Mean­while, MP Des Vi­gnes said his fo­cus was on lis­ten­ing to res­i­dents and en­sur­ing con­tin­ued sup­port as re­cov­ery ef­forts progress.

“I’m walk­ing through the com­mu­ni­ty, just lis­ten­ing to peo­ple—hear­ing what has hap­pened to them and how they’ve been af­fect­ed,” he said.

“It’s not about show­ing up and then dis­ap­pear­ing. It’s about be­ing here with my con­stituents through the en­tire process.”

Des Vi­gnes said most res­i­dents ex­pressed grat­i­tude and re­lief that the storm’s im­pact was not worse.

“The next stop is Rich Plain be­cause we had two land­slides there,” he added.

The MP not­ed that while the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion re­mains the first line of de­fence, his of­fice con­tin­ues to work close­ly with coun­cil­lors to en­sure all af­fect­ed house­holds re­ceive the as­sis­tance they need.