Helping Jamaica Prepare for Hurricane Dean
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A woman surveys the remains of her neighborhood
after Hurricane Dean. |
November 2007
One of the most noteworthy aspects of the U.S. Government's response to Hurricane Dean in Jamaica is that humanitarian assistance was set in motion days before the hurricane struck the Caribbean island.
The U.S. Agency for International Development’s
Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance
(USAID/OFDA) pre-positioned a six-person
assessment team in Jamaica the
day before the hurricane’s arrival, and provided
$25,000 in preparedness assistance
to the Government of Jamaica on August
17, two days before the storm hit.
“This was a new initiative that worked very
well for the national disaster organization,
so they could look at what kind of supplies
could be placed in shelters before the storm
hit, and/or needed for distribution as soon
as the disaster hit,” explained Tim Callaghan,
Senior Regional Advisor for the
USAID/OFDA Latin America and Caribbean
office. “USAID/OFDA provided preparedness
assistance to Belize, Honduras and
Nicaragua before Hurricane Felix based on
this positive experience.”
USAID/OFDA disaster specialists arrived in
Kingston on August 18 and spent the day
monitoring the approaching hurricane and
coordinating with humanitarian and disaster
management agencies on the ground.
“That’s one of the reasons we pre-deploy.
One of the critical needs is to meet with
other actors to plan out potential responses
and avoid duplication of efforts so we can
really hit the ground running during a response,”
explained USAID/OFDA Regional
Advisor Julie Leonard, who headed up the
USAID assessment team.
The hurricane was forecast to hit the island
directly.
“Just about everyone in Jamaica was concerned
about the track Hurricane Dean was
taking, given the record of Gilbert and the
fact that it looked like a category 5,” said
Audrey Mullings, a Jamaica-based Regional
Consultant for USAID/OFDA. Hurricane
Gilbert, one of the most intense hurricanes
ever observed in the Atlantic, had struck
Jamaica head-on in 1988.
As information about Hurricane Dean became
available, the Government of Jamaica
prepared projections based on two scenarios:
a Gilbert-like, direct-hit scenario, and
another Ivan-like, southward scenario. (The
center of Ivan, a category 5 hurricane,
passed about 20 miles south of Jamaica in
September 2004, causing considerably less
damage than Gilbert).
Just before Hurricane Dean struck Jamaica
on August 19, 2007, it lost steam and
veered south, hitting the island’s southern
coast as a category 4 hurricane.
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Aid workers conduct an assessment of damages
near the coast. |
“So, although we were hit, a lot of people
were relieved. It would have been worse had
it been a direct hit,” Mullings said.
Still, the hurricane and associated flooding
killed four people and destroyed 3,207
houses, according to Jamaica’s Office of
Disaster Preparedness and Emergency
Management (ODPEM). Uprooted trees and
flooding left many main roads impassable.
The pre-deployed USAID/OFDA team coordinated
with ODPEM to ensure a quick and
timely response to the needs of affected
Jamaican families. On August 20, the day
after Hurricane Dean struck, ODPEM and
USAID/OFDA disaster experts conducted
initial damage assessments by air with the
Jamaican Air Force. Mullings said that during
the flyovers, which were partially
funded by USAID/OFDA, she went east and
surge capacity consultant Nicholas Brown
went west to canvass the island and provide
a rapid preliminary assessment.
“We covered all the main areas of the island
in the first three days, along with relief
workers from other international agencies.
The relief supplies provided by USAID/OFDA came soon after, and we were able to
distribute them to different NGOs for distribution
to affected residents,” Mullings said.
USAID/OFDA dispatched 560 rolls of reinforced
plastic sheeting, 6,250 blankets,
5,000 ten-liter water containers, and 2,590
hygiene kits from its warehouse in Miami,
Florida. The supplies were valued at more
than $297,000 (including transport).
USAID/OFDA also provided $100,000 to
the Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO) to support emergency health services,
and $150,000 to USAID/Jamaica and
several humanitarian organizations. Grants
were awarded to the Jamaican Red Cross
($35,000), the Salvation Army ($35,000),
Catholic Relief Services ($35,000) and the
Adventist Development and Relief Agency
($30,625) to help provide affected families
with food packages (flour, rice, canned meat
and vegetables, milk, and sugar), water,
cooking sets, mattresses, blankets, and
flashlights.
“There was really good interagency coordination,
especially with the U.N. teams,”
Mullings said, adding that the experience
and capacity of ODPEM Director General Ronald Jackson, appointed to the post just
weeks before, contributed greatly to the
efficiency of the operations.
Most of the USAID/OFDA specialists left on
August 24. Mullings, based in Jamaica, will
help monitor ongoing relief programs.
“Initially, people thought the impact wasn’t
huge. But two or three weeks later we
found out that there were a lot of pockets,
lots of areas that were really badly affected.
Because of the way the storm passed – it
was a wide storm – it created pockets of
damage in highland areas and some coastal
areas to the south,” Mullings said.
As an interesting anecdote, she added, part
of the U.S. relief funds may be used to help
rebuild the roofs of approximately 90
houses in two of the most affected communities
on the southernmost tip of the island,
Portland Cottage and Rocky Point. Hurricane
Ivan devastated these areas in 2004,
and USAID/Jamaica had provided funds at
that time to rebuild homes there. Many of
them are the same ones affected by Hurricane
Dean. USAID/Jamaica has hired a
structural engineer to analyze requirements
to rebuild roofs in the two communities to
withstand the kinds of storms encountered
on that part of the island. Some of the
USAID/OFDA funds will then be used to
help purchase supplies for the reconstruction.
Total USAID/OFDA humanitarian funding
for Jamaica in response to Hurricane Dean
is $572,244.
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