The Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) is recording an increase in landslide and damaged structures two days after the passage of Hurricane Beryl.
The agency also predicted that Tobago may take more than a month to recover from the impact of the Category Four hurricane.
Although the damage was far from severe, considering the island was spared from a direct hit by the storm, the aftermath still affected up to 57 villages.
TEMA director, Allan Stewart, said the number of incident reports, which stood at 221, continued to climb.
“We had about 12 to 13 reports this morning, so the number continues to grow. It continues to be land slippage and fallen trees. The teams are working on the damage assessment now,” he said.
Up to yesterday afternoon, there have been reports of 75 fallen trees, 57 roofs damaged, 15 blocked roads, and six buildings with structural damage, among other incidents.
Stewart told Guardian Media that 50 per cent of these reports had been attended to and the affected areas restored.
However, with the ongoing inclement weather, there is still much work to be done.
He said, “This is very mild in terms of what we are accustomed to and, therefore, within a month or so, or two months we should see ourselves in a strong recovery phase.”
Asked to rate TEMA’s response to this disaster, Stewart said the agency had done well.
“In all humility, I think there is always room for improvement. I’ll rate ourselves around 8. In terms of our operations, we realised we were quite ready for this.”
The island is still assessing the damage and so the estimated cost of restoring affected areas is yet to be released.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Port Authority of T&T (PATT), Lyle Alexander, said the backlog was clear following the cancellation of all sailings of the inter-island ferry on Monday due to the passage of the hurricane. He said, “The fact that the Buccoo Reef left Tobago at 4 pm with 148 passengers suggests that the backlog is cleared up. We did this by just putting on additional sailings following the cancellations.
“We moved 900 people on Tuesday and to be moving 148 today suggests everything is normalised.”
Alexander said PATT had done an excellent job at dealing with and managing the impact of the hurricane on its service.
He said, “I am satisfied that our commitment to the country to ensure the travelling public is able to travel on the sea bridge that is working is working very well.”