DEPUTY Director of the Department of Emergency Management (DEM), Captain Robert Harewood has dismissed a claim that there was a meeting at the DEM on Wednesday night to discuss the then Tropical Storm Irma, which allegedly was veering south on a trajectory that would give Barbados a devastating blow.
The claim was made on a voice note that quickly made its way across social media on Wednesday, sending some persons into a state of panic. The male voice in the voice note suggested he had just left a meeting with DEM officials and it was determined that Irma was a one-in-50-year hurricane that would be even more devastating than Hurricane Janet which, according to him, passed to the north of the island and wreaked havoc.
When contacted yesterday, Captain Harewood opined that people who make these malicious claims should be imprisoned. He also pointed to errors in the voice note, clarifying that Hurricane Janet had passed to the south of the island, not the north. He assured that the DEM is in close contact with officials from the Met Office and is monitoring the system.
He told the Barbados Advocate, “What people have done, which is correct, is they asked the DEM to confirm. We were able to deny it. If there was a meeting at DEM most people would know, including the media,” he said.
Meanwhile over at the Barbados Meteorological Services, senior meteorologist Clem Williams also expressed concern about the misinformation circulating on social media and noted that this is not the first time it has happened. He encouraged persons to only pay attention to official statements as they are issued by the Met Office.
“I am not sure you are going to be able to fight this social media thing because there are people who can put these things out here anonymously. At the end of the day they don’t have to worry whether or not it turns out to be true or false.
“Here at the Met office, we have to be more responsible, and generally in a situation like this with a system so far as this, we monitor it as soon as it comes off the African Coast, but when they are that far away there is a lot that can happen. If you start to put information out there at this stage, you are going to create panic.”
He stressed that there is a large degree of error even with the graphics on National Hurricane sites.
“As the Met Office, the official entity, we don’t start putting anything out there until we have a reasonably good idea about what is going to happen. Two to three days out.”
Williams said the Met Office puts out information when officials are reasonably certain about what is going to happen and at this stage that is not the case.
“If you have to respond to everything that you hear or see on social media then you will always be responding. The most we can do is do what we do all the time: Ask people to listen to the official source of meteorological information. People need to by-pass the social media conversations and in situations like these where you are dealing with Tropical storms and hurricanes, listen to what officials say,” he urged. Williams assured that the Met Office is continuing to monitor Irma and will issue a statement today. (JH)