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An evacuation plan for Barbados in the event of a coastal hazard is still in the pipelines.

This was underscored by Deputy Director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit, Dr. Lorna Inniss, who noted that what the country has at present is a draft evacuation plan completed by a consultant to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

However, she said the plan needed to be based on the latest scientific data and information which presently was not the case.

"It [the draft evacuation plan] was based on coastal maps that were done in the 1990s. The Coastal Risk Assessment and Management project is expected to reassess a number of areas off the coast of Barbados and a number of parameters to provide new updated hazard maps showing how far in a particular height storm surge would come, or how far in a particular size tsunami will come," she disclosed.

Dr. Inniss explained that it was those hazard maps that an evacuation plan should be based on. She added that the Coastal Risk Assessment and Management project was designed to provide scientific data on which the evacuation plan would be based.

Diagnostic studies for the project are expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

julia.rawlins-bentham@barbados.gov.bb

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