Barbados is on standby to assist Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful storms of the century, battered parts of it with winds of up to 150 miles per hour during landfall yesterday.
As the country of 1.2 million people was caught in a battle to withstand the fierce winds and intense rainfall that flooded communities and stripped buildings, especially in the southern part of the island, in Barbados the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the local Department of Emergency Management were already putting together selected emergency items for delivery as soon as possible based on Jamaica’s request for help.
Regional Logistics Hub
It is the first time that the five-month-old Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub was activated for withdrawal from its store of donated critical relief items for dispatch to an affected country, in this case Jamaica.
Rear Admiral Errington Shurland, executive director of the Regional Security System, said its plans were nested with those of CDEMA.
He explained they had placed on standby two elements of the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit of 34 people, each with different skill sets, and once the all-clear was given, the request from Jamaica on its needs lists would be executed.
Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams said while CDEMA was spearheading the response for relief efforts based on its assessment, items were already being put together, including tarpaulins, cots and generators.
A preliminary list from Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management contains items such as 500 cases of batteries, bedding foam, solar lanterns, 100 000 mattresses, a similar number of buckets with lids, hygiene kits, 10 000 storage tanks, 10 000 portable generators, blood pressure machines, chainsaws, defibrillators and field hospital equipment. Abrahams said CDEMA was coordinating with all the other donors and CARICOM countries to determine what the response would be like.
“They’ve coordinated some airlift for when the airports do open back. I know they’ve also done logistical coordination with shipping agencies and a French vessel that provides disaster relief [so] that they can send items by sea,” the minister said.
Coordinated response
However, cargo cannot go into the country until the sea settles so the ship can dock – and that could be days. “You won’t be able to offload containers so Jamaica initially is going to have to respond from its supplies. But as soon as they’re in a position to receive
traffic, whether by air or by sea, then I have no doubt a coordinated response will be going in. “But, as it stands now, we’ve identified things that are going to be sent in, in the immediate aftermath. Those things are actually being positioned to be loaded and shipped out once we get word from Jamaica . . . but there’s going to be a natural lag,” Abrahams said. Meanwhile, Tariq Durant, a Barbadian student who opted not to just stay in Jamaica but remain on Leslie Robinson Hall at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, said he was doing fine and had heard from fellow students, whose major complaints were of incoming water from windows.
President of the Barbados Student Association of Jamaica, Melissa Godson, said those at the Pegasus Hotel reported feeling safe and taken care of, with the only worry being the aftermath.
“Students from the hall are currently doing fine. They do not seem to be excessively shaken. A few rooms got a bit flooded but they’ve been doing what they can for now,” she said.
Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn alluded to the situation during the Caribbean Debt Forum of the LAC Debt Group 2025 yesterday, saying the Caribbean wanted to build resilience.
“We really don’t want to be exposed to a disaster to get debt relief. We want to build resilience up front such that when these events occur, the damage is minimised and we can recover as quickly as possible.
“And so, another year, another storm, and the region still has not been able to advance the building of resilience fast enough to make a significant difference, because having to rebuild has a cost, and that cost has direct monetary consequences for what happens in health, what happens in education, what happens to the public infrastructure,” he told those at Hilton Barbados. (AC)
