Hurricane Paranoia

It's been 3 weeks since hurricane Tomas hit - 3 weeks since St. Lucian's realised that perhaps they should start taking hurricane watches and warning seriously. In the wake of the disaster left by Tomas we now in my opinion have another issue to deal with in addition to the physical damage left behind; we as a people have been psychologically traumatized. This was more evident today - we got word that we would be experiencing a trough, as a result all business in the capital was shut down and people asked to evacuate. WTF!, it was a fucking trough, everybody and their mother began to panic. Castries got flooded, as if that's a freaking surprise - 5 minutes of consistent heavy rain and the city floods; the drainage is poor and continually clogged with garbage lazy nasty people dump on the streets - is that a reason to shut down the place.

Dennery and Bexon got flooded - damn what a surprise; Dennery always gets flooded, this on top the fact that it's been hit by heavy rains twice in the last month (including from Tomas); and like Bexon it has not been totally clear up from the debris and deluge from Tomas - hence the flooding. The advisory gave advice on the possible affected areas - people in those areas, and people with family in those areas should have taken heed. This situation did not warrant mass panic, on the heels of Tomas we have moved from one extreme to the next - that of being nonchalant about weather advisories to us now over reacting, only now since people lost their lives and property in Tomas we call our overreaction precaution, as it is better than cure right - I call it paranoia.

This is the result of being a proactive rather than a reactive society - there are many things we could have done to not be in this position right now including (but not limited to):

• Taking more pride in our country and not littering it like we do.
• Adhering to building codes
• Ensuring there is proper drainage when we construct our houses
• Reduce or rather eliminate deforestation
• Building some god damn retaining walls

Inside of doing these things we panic and start point fingers. Seriously is this going to become the norm, every time it rains we get a directive from a Ministry official to all go home - we're going to run a country on fear and panic. Who is going to be the voice of reason in this panic state? People it was only a trough, something we have experienced before - that is not to say dismissing it is being complacent; if we take Tomas away from the equation all this was, was a rainy day - is a rainy day out of place in the hurricane season. A trough masai, a fucking trough, it stopped raining over 8 hours ago, oh well I got a half day of work - hoo-fucking-ray.