The Office of Disaster Management (ODM) has updated its response procedures to cater to multi-hazards, especially during the COVId-19 pandemic.
National Disaster Preparedness Coordinator, Fitzroy Pascal made the announcement as a guest on Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit’s Annou Pale Talk Show on the weekend.
“As you know we have been battling with Covid-19, so we are now operating within a multi-hazard environment. We are not only preparing for just hurricanes, but Covid has taught us differently,” he said. “We could be impacted by any number of hazards at any time. We have updated our response procedures as a result to cater for multi-hazards, particularly the pandemic considerations.”
The ODM coordinator said his office has also been working to enhance the National Emergency Planning Organization (NEPO) mechanism to prepare for and respond to any hazardous impact and protocols have been updated for emergency support functions including relief management, emergency communications, shelter management and damage assessment.
“We have enhanced the emergency communications coordination,” Pascal said. “We have also strengthened partnerships with key stakeholders including the private sector, the public sector and the NGO’s .”
Other measures that have been taken by the ODM include contingency arrangements for the provision of serge support should that become necessary during an event and so far, according to Pascal, there are 3 district committees, one located in the north, two others in the south and in the east, “and we intend to have more as time goes by.”
Capacity building is anther area that the ODM has been paying attention to with 300 people trained in emergency communication, shelter management and relief management and Pascal says that work will continue at the community, district and national levels.
A community evacuation simulation exercise intended to test the ODM’s evacuation plan and shelter operations is also on the cards. According the ODM coordinator, this simulation exercise, to be held in Layou in July this year, will inform the procedures and protocols for the new regional shelters which are now being constructed.
“We have also conducted our own internal preparedness activities,” Pascal revealed. “We have just completed a hurricane tabletop exercise where we tested the coordination of partners during a hurricane event.”
He said later this month the ODM is expected to train 60 persons in the north in emergency operations and radio communications.
The ODM has also been engaged in the continuing process of working with NEPO subcommittees to strengthen their preparedness.
“We are trying to improve the relief management and to enhance decentralization of our storage,” Pascal explained. “We do not want something to happen in the island, God forbid, and everyone is running to Roseau. So we are trying decentralized storage in terms of erecting container pads and having secured containers with relief storage throughout the country and we are looking at a district approach,”
He said the ODM is also working closely with the police.
“The police are responsible for telecommunications, so we are going around and installing PHF radios and also repeaters…,” Pascal stated.
Meanwhile, Local Government Commissioner, Glenroy Toussaint, said the local government has partnered with the Dominica Association of Persons with Disabilities (DAPD) and started the process of conducting workshops with shelter managers specifically to address the challenges and issues relating to persons with disabilities.
“We started on the 9th of June and it continues throughout the month into early July where we are going to cover all the 7 local government districts, all of the shelter managers in Dominica, because we believe that there are issues as it relates to shelter management with persons with disabilities and we felt that we needed to partner with them, so we have this partnership and we are hoping that come this season, 2021, we can better serve persons with disabilities,” Toussaint stated.
is hurricane season and all ravine and rivers filled with sand and debris waiting to create another disaster…
Have one in Antrim area that full up with stones. That one does come down bad.
To work there your first name must end with “roy”
…and one must be a member of the corruption club and holder of the Red Bible.
Boy, I’m so sick and tired listening to these pretenders, let alone looking at them. None of them have the faintest clue what they are on about. They desperately try and justify their existence.