Article Image Alt Text

From Left: Deputy Director of CDEMA, Elizabeth Riley; Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ronald Jackson; and CDEMA Operations Specialist Brigadier (Ret’d), Earl Arthurs, as they presented a summary of events which affected the region during the 2016 hurricane season.

Hurricane season observations and lessons identified

 

GIVING a review of the just concluded 2016 hurricane season, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ronald Jackson says vulnerability is still an issue for many small territories in the region.
 
His comments came during a press briefing yesterday at CDEMA’s headquarters where he noted that the 2016 season was actually above average with 15 named storms, seven hurricanes, three of which were above Category three.
 
He pointed to the impact of Hurricanes Earl and Matthew on Belize and The Bahamas respectively as well as the troughs and other weather systems that drenched several countries including Barbados as recent as last week.
However, Jackson noted that there were some positives to be extrapolated. He commended the housing stock of the Bahamas, which stood up well during the passage of Hurricane Matthew, particularly when juxtaposed with Haiti.
 
“One could attribute that to the building standards that are applied in the Bahamas, where ordinarily with such wind speeds you would have seen much more significant damage in some of the other states,” he noted.
“One of the things CDEMA promotes in its advocacy is the application of appropriate building standards that are legislated and monitored.”
 
Pointing to other lessons, Jackson stressed the importance of continuing the capacity strengthening exercises that are necessary for Member States to be able to deal with the analysis of the potential impact of the event.
 

“The dissemination of warning but how that is also transformed into the international context. So our national disaster offices would need to be further strengthened to provide the level of leadership and operational capabilities that are necessary to allow for them to effectively continue their co-ordination efforts but also provide advocacy to governments around the areas that need to be addressed.”

 

Jackson stressed that the level of catastrophic insurance is also an important consideration for the region.

 

“In the case of Barbados where they have been able to look at the level at which their coverage is placed in such a way that they are able to trigger with events such as Matthew, where the wide-ranging impact may not have been in the case of Bahamas or Haiti.”

 

“There are other countries who cant put the level of coverage in place to allow them to cover those facilities from some of these events. So they have to see how they strengthen their national catastrophe funds. For cases where they wont trigger the sort of catastrophic insurance facilities but will require additional resources to finance early response, recovery operations while they look at the approaches to deal with the longer term recovery and reconstruction needs,” he said.

 

CDEMA Operations Specialist Brigadier (Ret’d) Earl Arthurs was deployed to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and this year after the devastating blow by Hurricane Matthew. He reported major improvements since his first visit noting that whereas in 2010 the international community chaired response meetings, in 2016, the Haitian government and its agencies was at the helm of the sectors and clusters in the response effort and managing its own affairs.

 

Deputy Director of CDEMA Elizabeth Riley who also facilitated the Regional Co-ordinating Centre during the relief efforts highlighted the importance of volunteerism during the hurricane season.

 

“The spirit of humanitarianism is very strong still in the region.” She noted that an honest reflection of the events will take place in the first quarter of next year on how national and regional systems functioned and how they can be improved going forward. (JH)

 

Barbados Advocate

Mailing Address:
Advocate Publishers (2000) Inc
Fontabelle, St. Michael, Barbados

Phone: (246) 467-2000
Fax: (246) 434-2020 / (246) 434-1000