Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has is­sued a stark warn­ing that the Caribbean re­mains “hope­less­ly un­pre­pared” for vol­canic dis­as­ters, three decades af­ter the dead­ly Soufrière Hills erup­tion in Montser­rat.

Speak­ing at the Montser­rat Vol­cano Ob­ser­va­to­ry’s 30th An­niver­sary Sci­en­tif­ic Open­ing Con­fer­ence on Mon­day, Dr Row­ley said re­gion­al gov­ern­ments con­tin­ue to un­der­es­ti­mate vol­canic threats—of­ten dis­miss­ing calls for pre­pared­ness as “cry­ing wolf.”

“A dan­ger­ous mis­take is be­liev­ing vol­ca­noes will al­ways give us enough warn­ing be­fore erupt­ing,” he said. “And worse, as­sum­ing it won’t hap­pen on my watch.”

Row­ley, a trained ge­ol­o­gist, played a role in the re­gion­al re­sponse to the 1995–1997 Montser­rat erup­tion. At the time, he wit­nessed de­lays in de­ci­sion-mak­ing that he now at­trib­ut­es to po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing.

“It was clear that the chief min­is­ter was seek­ing con­fronta­tion with the British Gov­ern­ment,” he told at­ten­dees dur­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion by Montser­rat’s for­mer gov­er­nor Frank Sav­age.

His com­ments fol­low his pub­lic an­nounce­ment last month that he was re­turn­ing to his “first love”—vol­canol­o­gy—as a form of aca­d­e­m­ic stim­u­la­tion, not a ca­reer shift.

In June, dur­ing a Men in Lead­er­ship pan­el at Bish­op’s High School, he spoke of rekin­dling this pas­sion. At this week’s con­fer­ence in Lit­tle Bay, he joined sci­en­tists, dis­as­ter man­agers, and re­gion­al lead­ers in re­flect­ing on lessons learned—and not learned—from Montser­rat’s tragedy.

Dr Row­ley em­pha­sised the need for po­lit­i­cal will and ad­vo­ca­cy, warn­ing that some lead­ers avoid ac­tion sim­ply be­cause vol­canic threats feel dis­tant.

“Too of­ten, peo­ple say: ‘Let’s not deal with that now. When it hap­pens, we’ll cross that bridge,’” he said. “Even dur­ing a cri­sis, you’ll have some treat­ing it like fear­mon­ger­ing.”

He called for greater in­vest­ment in pre­pared­ness, es­pe­cial­ly for is­land na­tions where ur­ban set­tle­ments sit close to ac­tive or dor­mant vol­canic zones.

“SAPA and oth­er cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions are about safe­guard­ing our sto­ries and spir­its—but we must al­so safe­guard our lives,” he said.

Row­ley urged lead­ers to stop de­lay­ing dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions and act now to pre­vent an­oth­er dis­as­ter from catch­ing the re­gion off guard.