#BTColumn – Stay & Live

Disclaimer: The opinions and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of Barbados today.

By Grenville Phillips II

On August 1, 2007, the Interstate-35 West Bridge in Mississippi collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. During news reports, engineers have been criticized for not adequately explaining them in their warnings about the “structurally defective” classification of the bridge.

Two months after the bridge collapsed, I wrote a candid article warning that Barbados’ homes were being hit by hurricanes.

In 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 300,000 people. About 1,300 schools have collapsed or become unusable.

The following year, the earthquake design information was updated for the Caribbean. This modernization automatically created most of the Caribbean multi-storey concrete buildings, which are not designed to a large extent for earthquakes.

Stay and shelter

After surveying all primary, secondary and high schools in Barbados in 2012, she warned that most of them could collapse during a major earthquake as a result of the new standards.

The solutions were clear. The new school buildings should be economically designed according to the new standard, and the existing school buildings should be economically strengthened.

Earlier this month (March 2021), the government confirmed earthquake safety protocols. Our students should remain in their classrooms during an earthquake and shelter under their desks.

This is good advice for occupants of buildings specially designed for major earthquakes. A shelter under the desk can protect occupants from falling ceiling tiles and other lightweight debris.

Stay and die

Asking our students to stay in the classroom for a building that is likely to collapse does not seem wise advice. Nearly 17,000 students died in collapsed schools during the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir.

This proved that for buildings not designed for earthquakes, advice actually means survival and death.

Their deaths should not go in vain. The government is advising a review of this earthquake safety protocol while there is still time.

I was pleased to learn that the government was upgrading school buildings before the COVID-19 cutoff. My happiness turned into a familiar frustration when I learned that the promotions were merely cosmetic, not structural.

The government advises a critical review of building priorities.

Fighting opportunity

Based on my decade-long advocacy trying to reduce the risk of our schools collapsing during earthquakes, I do not expect the government to change its earthquake protocols. However, our students must be given a combat chance to survive, when the classroom building collapses.

The obvious solution is to strengthen all the classroom desks, so they can support the weight of the concrete slab (s) falling over it. The government is highly advised to consider the best alternative to economically strengthening schools, so that our students can be honestly told to stay and live.

Grenville Phillips II has conducted premarital counseling for the past 25 years. So far, none of these couples have gone through a separation or divorce. [email protected]

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