ESCAPE FROM ACTS OF GOD       

Aristotle held that there are three forms of happiness. The first form of happiness is a life of pleasure and enjoyment. The second form of happiness is a life of a free and responsible citizen. The third form of happiness is a life as thinker and philosopher. The first and third forms of happiness I had experienced aplenty in my life. As Prime Minister ANR Robinson offered the job to a reluctant me at his Central Bank’s 16^th floor office I decided that I would derive maximum happiness in discharging my duties as a responsible Director of the National Emergency Management Agency. Thus also terminated Narine’s Theodore’s and Rampersad’s chances of possessing the blames of NEMA directorship.

From Chapter II -Chronic Anxiety about Hurricanes
Can you prepare a plan before you convene the next meeting of the Task Force’, directed Rudin Austin from the Ministry of Works. Rudin also gave a derisive laughter that indicated that the coming Hurricane Season would be over before the plan is made. Soon all the members joined in a chorus expressing anxiety about a dozen or so hurricanes that were expected to head towards the Caribbean in coming months. And only a plan could save the Country that had somehow survived hundreds of hurricane seasons without a disaster plan.

From the sanctuary of the Acropolis I was now being pushed to climb Mount Everest. With a brave face I promised them a plan in two weeks time and adjourned the Meeting. As the participants dispersed I could sense that at that time I was the butt of their pleasantries, which ranged beyond gossip into malice.

As I walked back from to my office at St Vincent Street I heard a somewhat familiar voice “Colonel Mahendra Mathur”. I stopped and looked in the direction of the source of the voice. It was Patrick Manning, now Opposition Leader, who wanted to know how the Robinson Government was treating me. “Very well, thank you”, I responded, “I have just presided over the first Meeting of the NEMA as its Director”. Manning was indignant, “What a waste of a good engineer, these people do not know what they are doing”. I could not help wondering how unwittingly I had managed to unite the Opposition Leader and the Prime Minister in inflated assessment of this innocent soul. I was hardly a good engineer and I certainly did not seem to have any potential to be a good Disaster Manager.

To bring my audience to the real world then I introduced them to the elements of disaster management, that is, Hazard Analysis, Vulnerability Analysis, Mitigation and Prevention, Disaster Preparedness, Prediction and Warning, Response and Recovery. “Shuddering awe is mankind’s noblest part”, Oswald Spangler might have said in his treatise ‘The decline of West’, but these gifts have to be denied to the women who must seek to reduce the awe’s adverse effects, I pronounced. The audience frowned. I went to say that women could help in this endeavour by writing hazard histories in their areas as well as historical records of vulnerability, and estimating what the impact of threat might be to the communities at risk. The frowns now betrayed supplement of contempt.

I went on to say that women can assist in Mitigation and Prevention by being instrumental in moving threatened communities from flood plains and areas vulnerable to sea-waves and strengthening their houses. This was a task which no government or agency can perform: women have to help the communities to do it themselves. In the words of Abraham Lincoln: “You cannot help men by doing for them what they should for themselves”. For the first time I noticed nods of approval from the audience. Whether they were for Abraham Lincoln or me I do not know.
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“For too long soldiering has been considered the noblest profession of the world. Let us work to change this ancient popular belief. New women of the Caribbean, conduct yourself in a manner that as the twenty-first century dawns the word woman becomes synonymous with the newest profession of the world, which would henceforth be known as he most sublime profession on earth – Disaster Management”, I concluded. Not one person clapped. The audience behaved as if I had been piercing a dagger in its stomach and had now turned it.

From Chapter IV - Other People's Deluges
The magnificent building, one of the seven on Maraval Road, was built in 1907, purchased by the Government in 1954 and had been housing the Office of the Prime Minister since 1961 until 1988 when Robinson decided to leave the building, which was now in need of extensive repairs, for the Central Bank’s Twin Towers. The Property Manager in the Prime Minister’s Office took me for a tour of the Whitehall. He led me up the steps to a large room with worn out carpet, peeling walls and leaking roof and made a sweeping gesture. ‘Just think of all the remarkable men who have been in this room.’ I looked dutifully at the empty room. ‘After Independence, Eric Williams. After his death, George Chambers and recently, ANR Robinson. And the visitors! Indira Gandhi, Pierre Trudeau, Julius Nyere.’ The Manager said the famous names like a witch casting a spell until I half-expected to see Dr Eric Williams himself come in the Office and say ‘Massa day done’ and ‘Money is no problem’

When I protested that a building whose roof is likely to give way with the first winds and rains of a storm was hardly a suitable location for an EOC, I was shown the stables of the premises as an alternative. It was like being offered either the partially destroyed Parthenon Temple at the top of Acropolis or Socrates’ Prison Cell at the foot of the Acropolis. I declined to accept either and stayed put at my humble offices at Plaka, that is, St Vincent Street, with plans to move to Wallerfield in the East in emergencies. And an emergency seemed to loom faster than expected when tidings reached us that the storm ‘Hugo’ was heading towards the Caribbean.
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When I reached the Prime Minister’s Office at the appointed hour not a single other Member of the Board – they were all Cabinet Ministers - was there. Robinson shrugged his shoulders and made an obvious remark, “What can I say about my Ministers: they are all unpunctual”. I utilized the opportunity to brief the Prime Minister on the Agenda and the decisions that needed to be taken and then retired to the Conference Room to await arrival of the Honorable Ministers. “I am the first comer”, exclaimed a 15-minutes late and relieved Dr. Carson Charles, Minister of Works, on entering. Soon three other Ministers followed and I was able to invite the Prime Minister to come and chair the Meeting.

From Chapter V - A Californian Concrete Sandwich
When an earthquake hit San Francisco on 17 October 1989 killing some 250 people. My friend and member of NEMA Technical Force, Myron Chin, eagerly volunteered to visit California to see what lessons could be learnt from the disaster provided I could send him and a colleague of his, Arun Buch, officially and give him free air tickets. I harnessed his zeal of volunteerism by obtaining Prime Minister’s approval and free tickets from BWIA and Pan Am for this, what some people imagined to be, jaunt, but in fact was a more serious mission. No sooner had Keith Rowley, acting Head of Seismic Research Unit at the UWI got wind of this mission that he rang me to say he was more qualified than the other two, was being discriminated against and should also be included in this mission. I sent another Note to the Prime Minister Robinson requesting his approval for including Rowley in the trip to California. Back came the reply from the Prime Minister, “There is no need to reopen the issue”. Knowing the past feud between the two gentlemen I did not mention the Prime Minister’s input when I told Rowley that I regretted I was unable to include him in the Survey Party. I have not cared to remember his response.
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I suggested institution of incentives to encourage future development on safer sites and safer methods of construction in Trinidad and Tobago by land-use control and land development incentives. But down came the Sisyphus’s rock again when a Meeting was called at the Ministry of Planning to approve grandiose construction at reclaimed land west of the port of Port-of-Spain. I objected strongly to the development and stopped the rock for a time. But later better counsels prevailed and now we are all enjoying the newly created Movietown.

From Chapter VI - An American's Lobbying shot blocks the road to Italy
Once, in the course of an ill-spent life, it was my fate to go out on a playing field to play for my Course’s team in a football match at the National Defense Academy when I was an Officer Cadet there. Under compulsion, I need not add; one would hardly do that sort of thing voluntarily. I was forced to play by an Instructor to judge my sporting capability. For all of 90 minutes, at the position of ‘Left out’, I was indeed left out of the play. I never got to kick the football even once and yet I had done so much running that I was ready to drop dead. I gave it up; and nothing would ever induce me resume it and kept away from even watching it unless compelled to do so by reasons military. And I could never understand why people would pay money to watch 22 people chasing a damned football.
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In the end the match ended as it had been at the time of Caligiuiri’s goal – in complete silence; and in due course the dejected crowd vacated the Stadium in orderly manner. To my great relief, I might add. Although the match was lost the nation proved how much it was ready to rally around any nation-building effort, enthusiastically and how much more civilized it was compared to most of the other football playing nations. Next day we became the only Country in the world to mark a national defeat by a national holiday!

From Chapter VII - I don't care how. but save Dhaka from Floods

When I alighted at London to visit the Commonwealth Science Council for a briefing and Bangladesh High Commission to get a visa I came across Timothy James of St Lucia and Judy Thomas of Barbados, who were also on their way to the Conference in Dhaka. They said they were visiting London for the first time and knew not how to move about. Thereupon I volunteered to be their guide for the day. We took a taxi at Heathrow and headed straight to Marlborough House at Pall Mall (Office of Commonwealth Science Council). When the taxi reached Cromwell Road, I commenced my commentary by indicating to them National History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. The building themselves impressed them. Soon they admired the famous Harrods Store at Knightsbridge and at Hyde Park’s Corner they approved of the vast open expanse in the middle of the City. But their admiration for the British took a leap when I pointed at the statue of the Duke of Wellington as the taxi turned into Piccadilly. “The British are truly civilized: they honour all great men”, exclaimed Judy while smugly ‘correcting’ me, “True title of Wellington was Lord and not Duke’. While I was still in a confused state, the taxi stopped at the Marlborough House and Judy made the concluding statement to educate me, “Yes, Colonel, Lord Wellington was a great calypsonian of the Caribbean”.
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During the field trip our Bangladeshi guide displayed two traditions which Jane Austin was kind enough to name for us earlier in times: pride and prejudice. With pride he showed us a Memorial to commemorate Bangladesh’s victory over Pakistan in 1971 war. When I suggested that Indian Army also had something to do with that victory, he replied with prejudice that if Indian Army were capable of doing that then it would have done so during the 1965 war! With pride he took us to a Hindu Temple to show that Hindus were ‘safe’; but with prejudice he walked in the inner sanctum with his shoes on where no shoes were allowed. With pride he took us to the eastern bank of Padma River which   had over flown in 1988 to flood Dhaka and where now a ‘Bund’ was being built. Apparently President Ershad had given orders in Churchillian style, “I don’t care how but stop flooding of Dhaka”, after the 1988 floods. When I pointed out that this might stop flooding of Dhaka but unless a Bund was built on the far bank too, vast areas on western side of the river would be inundated if the river ever flooded. With prejudice the guide replied, “It is only the countryside that will be affected!”

From Chapter VIII - Pleasures of Disorganised Risk Assessment
Nineteen-nineties had been declared the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction by the United Nations (IDNDR). To launch the Country in this endeavor and to implement some of the lessons of the Bangladesh Conference I convened – with the Prime Minister’ approval – a NEMA Board meeting for the Ides of March 1990. A Chairman was to be nominated for the national IDNDR. Before the Meeting I had obtained Winston Dookeran’s consent to suggest his name for that post. But when that matter came up for discussion at the Meeting, the Prime Minister smiled at me benignly and pre-empted me by addressing me, “You should be that”, in a manner Aristotle might have said to one of his disciples, “Thou art that”. I looked at Dookeran and shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “That is that” – not too profound a statement to have been emanated from a great ancient philosopher.
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I was always aware of the prejudiced eye through which the media looks at government activities; but that it should be so heavily prejudiced in my favour, came as a pleasant surprise. The saga continued when Tropical Storm ‘Arthur’ by-passed Trinidad and hit Tobago’s northeastern tip a glancing blow, drenching the island in heavy rainfall. Commented an Editorial of Trinidad Guardian:            
The close passage of Arthur should serve as a serious warning to us all to heed the early call by Colonel Mahendra Mathur of NEMA for preparedness on the part of citizens. We are fortunate in having NEMA, which has provided detailed guidelines for preparations.  
Any individual can assess if his home is in a secure place. If not the nearest hurricane shelter should be selected as a place of refuge.

From Chapter IX - From Bhopal to APELL
But the organizers of the Seminar had saved the best for the last. A ‘new’ process for responding to Chemical Disasters was presented by an American Consultant, which he called Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at Local Level (APELL). Its orientation was towards the future. The principle aim was to immerse the disaster managers around the world in a marinade of ‘correctness’. I forget the name of the American speaker, but it could well have been Lincoln Steffens who said in Russia after the early 20^th Century Revolution, “I have been over into the future, and it works.” As horseplayers both – though separated by time and space – would have lost their shirts.