By Robert Andre Emmanuel
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) has touted its readiness for this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.
St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr Terrance Drew and CDEMA Executive Director Elizabeth Riley announced the soft launch of the Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) tool at a press conference yesterday.
Forecasters have long sounded the alarm about the potentially hyperactive season – which officially got underway on June 1 – due to a combination of record-warm temperatures in the North Atlantic and the transition from El Niño to La Niña conditions.
Executive Director Riley told reporters that “given this forecast, it is crucial that 19 participating states and the CDEMA coordinating unit, as well as the other partners within our regional response mechanism, are not just prepared but well prepared for severe weather”.
“I know there’s often heavy attention to the cyclonic activity, but our meteorological colleagues have continued to advise us that we need to pay equal attention to severe weather events as well as the secondary hazards that they can trigger, which include flooding, storm surge as well as landslides,” she said.
Riley spoke of a number of initiatives undertaken by the agency in the past few months to boost resilience and response of various islands’ disaster management agencies—also known as the Regional Response Mechanism.
“We’ve taken several actions to prepare for the Regional Response Mechanism activation this year—this includes our response teams, so the Caricom disaster relief unit, we have at present 31 persons trained to support humanitarian relief operations and this unit is ready for deployment.
“With respect to search and rescue, we have 36 persons who were trained across the CDEMA states last year bringing the number of trained persons to 60, we have also upgraded the deployment kits and we’re in the process of procuring additional search and rescue equipment for these regional teams.”
The CDEMA head also revealed that the agency has secured nine additional Starlink satellite internet terminals along with two Hornet VSAT terminals and other devices to boost communication during a disaster.
The regional agency also announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Florida-based cargo shipping company King Ocean Services Limited.
“King Ocean provides a wide range of maritime transport services from Florida to over a dozen ports through South America, Central America and the Caribbean…and under this MOU, King Ocean Services will provide cargo transportation services for the movement of relief that will ensure immediate and coordinated response to regional disasters and the swift delivery of essential goods and support to affected participating states.
“We have also signed an MOU with Global Affairs Canada, and this took place on May 2, and this provides critical logistics support—both air as well as maritime support—and provides logistics for the regional response mechanism response team as well as equipment from the Canadian Armed Forces,” she said.
In conclusion, the CDEMA Executive Director said that the agency continues to maintain a “heightened state of operational readiness within the region”, encouraging member states to utilise the suite of resources available through the CDEMA system.
