CARILEC CONFERENCE ON “MANAGING TROPICAL STORMS:
Challenges Faced and Lessons Learnt in 2004”
February 13 – 15, 2005: Barbados
Mr. Jeremy Collymore
Regional Coordinator
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency
CDERA is delighted to be part of this CARILEC event to review the experiences of the 2004 disasters and emergencies with the goal of capturing and sharing lessons.
The events of 2004 have yet again exposed the vulnerability of the Caribbean Small Island States to multi-country, multi-hazard impacts and the extent to which damage and losses can derail our socio-economic development.
It has also brought into sharp focus the challenges of responding to high magnitude hazard impacting events as well as the need for decisive actions at the national and regional levels in embracing risk management policies and practices in our social and economic landscape.
Seven (7) CDERA Participating States were affected by four (4) land falling hurricanes with some islands (Bahamas and Jamaica) being impacted twice. Hurricane Ivan, the longest lived intense hurricane on record swept through six (6) of the Participating States, completely devastating Grenada and causing severe damage in Jamaica and affecting the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The past year was also marked by a number of floods and landslides affecting several islands and causing considerable damage to infrastructure and the social and productive sectors. Barbados, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago suffered varying degrees of damage from these hazards. The November mudslides in Trinidad and Tobago also resulted in the deaths of two (2) persons.
Preliminary assessments and analyses , conducted by ECLAC and the OECS, estimate the value of damages and losses at more than US $5 billion.
The total losses sustained in Grenada has been estimated at US $889 million (212% of GDP), Jamaica US $580 (8% of GDP), Bahamas US $551 million (10% of GDP) and Dominica US $3.3 million (12.5% of GDP).
The impact on the social sectors has been especially substantive. In the case of Grenada, over 90% of the housing stock was damaged or destroyed, the agriculture sector was virtually wiped out and tourism, the major economic engine, suffered extensive damage and disruption. Economic losses have been estimated at US $481 million in the housing sector, US $37.4 million in the agricultural sector and US $150.4 million in the tourism sector.
The very high level of losses in the social and productive sectors should raise significant concern. They clearly indicate that our development interventions are not fully embracing available risk management practices. These clearly suggest policy and behavioral gaps which are impatient for attention.
Given the nature of the impact scenario I have just described, it is essential that the opportunity be taken, by all stakeholders in disaster management, to examine the realism of our planning, the efficacy of our response systems and the efficiency and effectiveness of our relief interventions.
It is in that context that we are brokering, in collaboration with key partners, a broad-based consultative and participatory exercise designed to distill and share experiences from the 2004 events.
We expect that within the second quarter of this year, our partners will convene in a regional forum to examine the distilled lessons and fashion recommendations for the enhancement of our disaster related policies and programmes aimed at reducing these derailing losses and improving the resilience of our communities.
This activity of the utilities sector, organized by CARILEC, must therefore be seen in that larger experience-sharing panorama.
Indications are that damage to infrastructure from hurricanes was considerably much less than that to the social and productive sectors. This data needs to be analyzed more closely as it may well provide some indicators as to the nature of changes necessary in our policy and practice in development planning and decision-making.
We need to enquire as to whether or not the relatively low percentage of infrastructure failure was a result of the deliberate application of risk reduction technologies and programmes or simply an indication of the magnitude of the event.
The initial conclusions of the data are that interventions in our social and productive sectors are not considering or accommodating risk reduction opportunities. This speaks to the need for the urgent development and adoption of national comprehensive disaster management programmes.
This hemorrhaging of our development cannot be sustained. It portends a greater threat to the CSME than other areas around which there is currently much debate.
The infrastructure for reviewing our development agenda and the fashioning of resilient communities already exists within the context of the Regional Strategy for Comprehensive Disaster Management(CDM). It focuses on mainstreaming disaster loss reduction into the development planning and decision-making processes.
It provides opportunities for building alliances within and across sectors. This CARILEC review represents the true spirit of Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM). It is sector driven and partnership focused.
Our partnership with CARILEC goes back to 1992, very early in the life of CDERA, when Hurricane Andrew struck the Bahamas. It has evolved substantially since then and was formalized last year, in Grenada, through an MOU.
We are strongly encouraging other utilities to undertake the initiative and assume the responsibility for structured cooperation similar to that demonstrated by CARILEC. Already the benefits of this sensitivity are being felt. The reduced down time in electricity, as a result of underground cabling is making a difference to
affected communities .
I wish to further suggest that disaster event evaluations must be become an integral part of our preparedness planning. It is because that we recognized the central value of learning from events that CDERA developed an evaluation guide over a decade ago. Our view is that is under utilized.
Let me conclude by urging that your review efforts over the next two (2) days go beyond identifying lessons learnt and making recommendations. Considerable, if not equal, time should be dedicated at defining strategies processes and mechanisms for translating them into programmes and actions in the shortest possible time.
