THE EDITOR, Sir:I, TOO, am quite concerned about people who ignore warnings about impending danger, and about the resources spent rescuing them, but I do not think that compulsory evacuation is the best solution to these problems.
Compulsory evacuation has probably saved many lives in other countries but 'not everything that fit dog, fit puss' (and not everything that fit dog now, will always fit dog), so its usefulness and desirability in the Jamaican situation should be carefully thought out before we copy it.
What if some rebellious, indisciplined Jamaican flatly refused to move out? Would they be shot on the spot? (Evacuation is for saving lives). Or would human and material resources be used rounding up and physically putting them into vehicles kicking and screaming? And where would we put these uncooperative evacuees? In jail, or in shelters with the 'law-abiding'? If shelter management is so difficult with those who voluntarily "flee from the wrath to come," how will it be when we add those against their will?
UNDAMAGED
History shows that 'the authorities' are not always right - they are human too. What if people placed by law in a shelter are killed in the shelter while their homes remain undamaged by the calamity from which they were evacuated? Would 'the authorities' be responsible for their death?
And with our political tribalism, 'bad mind' etc., it is quite easy for some evil people to misuse a compulsory evacuation law to harass people they don't like, forcing them to move when there is no real need to, or worse still, move them from 'frying pan' to 'fire'.
People should be free to move or stay with the understanding that bad choices have consequences. The state is not obliged to try to rescue people who had been warned. "Their blood be upon their own head." Similarly, people who choose to put their buildings in danger areas after being warned and offered an alternative are 'on their own'.
LAND-USE POLICIES
Instead of a potentially hard-to-enforce, offensive, easy-to-misuse compulsory evacuation law, I suggest that education and land-use policies be used to remove dwelling houses away from places that are better for rice, dasheen and fresh-water fish.
That way, an evacuation is likely to be the quick, simple, cheap movement of a few able-bodied workers to the safety of their homes rather than a difficult large-scale exodus of residents sick old, babies, criminals et al to the inconvenience and risk of public shelters.
I am, etc.,
CLEMENT CLEMENTSON
Harewood P.O., St. Catherine
