Never become complacent

Never become complacent.

This is the advice that the Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ronald Jackson is sending out to those Barbadians who may feel that they are safe because hurricanes usually tend to bypass this island.

He stated that once you are in the hurricane zone, you have a chance of being hit and just as you take out the various forms of insurance to protect your lives, your families, to ensure that you have something to leave behind for your children, you have to think of hurricane preparedness in much the same way.

“The fact that you are in the hurricane alley really presents a probability that you can be the next potential victim of any threat. So the way to pace this is not to become complacent about it but really to prepare yourself because you don’t know when it is going to be your time. I mean forgive me for saying this but it is like ‘why do you take out insurance?’ Because you know that at some point, you are going to have to address a major health issue, at some point you are going to want to leave something behind for your family. It is the same way. At some point, it is going to be you. We don’t know when it is going to be you because of course these are acts of nature and the actual, precise pathway sometimes is difficult for us to predict.”

Speaking with The Barbados Advocate recently, Jackson said that just because Barbados has not had a disaster in a while, does not mean that they cannot get one this season or any year after that and one only has to look at Dominica to see this.

“So for Barbadians it cannot be that because we have not had an impact in five or 10 or 15 years that we say, ‘oh, let us forget about this thing. It can come back. We have seen in the case of Dominica that there was a break for a long time and then they had a tropical trough, they had Tropical Storm Erica and then they had Hurricane Maria, all in the space of six years. There were three events in six years. That could be Barbados one day. So it is important that they learn, that they apply the mechanisms to ensure that they are safe, that they can shelter at home and that they can help many of the members of their community with their response.”

The CDEMA Executive Director said that they partner with the various national disaster management agencies for both preparedness and response. These agencies form part of their network and the message goes through them down to the “local actors and the community actors.”

He added that the benefit that Barbados has is that CDEMA is here and so their partnerships with organizations like the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) and communities allows them to give advice and other information. They also aim to position the national organizations to play a leadership role and then offer their assistance rather than trying to replace them. (PJT)

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