Abstract:
Trinidad and Tobago like many small Caribbean islands is faced with a major challenge during the hurricane season (June-November), in communicating tropical cyclone alerts and warnings effectively to its population. Notwithstanding significant strides forward in modern telecommunications, pockets of resistance, areas of poor information penetration or just plain apathetic responses to warning information remain. The causes could be related to differences in education, age, gender, location (rural vs. urban dwellers) culture and religion. The Meteorological Service, in consideration of all these factors, has mounted a new and somewhat revolutionary strategy to address these problems.