A two-day National after Action Review on Tropical Storm Erika is presently underway in Dominica.
The event aims to bring together local and regional respondents to discuss and reflect on the events surrounded the impact of Tropical Storm Erika on Dominica.
The exercise, being held at the Office of Disaster Management in Jimmit, is being done in collaboration between the Ministry of Health and the Environment and the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA).
“For many Dominicans who lost love ones and property the psycho-social impact will be difficult to quantify in terms of dollars and cents…however in moving forward it is important to perform a formal assessment of a health response to Erika so as to document the lessons learnt from the experience,” Chief Medical Officer, Dr. David Johnson said while addressing the opening ceremony on Wednesday. “We must improve our response to future events in Dominica.”
According to Dr. Johnson, an after-action review of the National Emergency Centre activated by the National Emergency Planning Organization and coordinated by the Office of Disaster Management was carried out at the end of September 2015.
“Clearly since that time the recovery stage has continued and it is felt that there will be significant benefit in carrying out another ‘After Action Review’ several months later to review and re-enforce the learning from this catastrophic event,” he stated. “Therefore this National After Action Review will built upon information gathered and lesson learnt since the review took place in September 2015.”
Meantime, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and National Security, Davis Letang said the country mechanisms were tested exposing its strengths and weaknesses as a result during the storm.
“As a result of Tropical Storm Erika, the national and regional mechanisms were tested exposing some strengths and, of course, our weaknesses in our emergency, planning, preparedness, alerting and response system,” he stated. “On August 27, Dominica suffered the brunt of Tropical Storm Erika leaving 14 dead and 16 still missing and over 600 displaced, nine communities were declared special disaster areas and another seven critical. Based on World Bank estimates, the cost of damage are estimated at about $1.3 billion, as we speak the Delices community is still caught from vehicular access which can make access to healthcare also challenging for residents of this community.”
He stated further that in excess of 300 people are still in shelters or in transitional housing.
“This too, as you will well, imagine can also have implications on public health,” Letang noted.
A number of regional agencies including the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), World Health Organization (WHO), the Caribbean Emergency Disaster Management Agency (CDEMA), and CARPA are participating in the review exercise.
Better late than never I guess. That should have all been worked out years ago.