Coping with disasters

Wednesday, October 8, was celebrated as International Day for Disaster Reduction. I am not sure if it was commemorated here or if many persons knew or really cared about it. Jeremy Collymore, the Coordinator of CEDERA did, however, give a message reflecting on the importance of the Day. He emphasized the fact that we live in a disaster prone area of the world and were subjected to annual threats of hurricanes, floods and landslides and that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were always potential threats.{{more}} He, of course, drew our attention to the impact of these on the economies of our countries and focused some attention on the impact of past disasters on the built environment. He writes, “The repeated devastation to critical infrastructure resulting from the impacts of such events has consistently setback regional development. Protection of our critical infrastructure must, therefore, become a pillar of our efforts to build a culture of resistance.”

We really don’t need to be reminded of the threats and the likely impact. It was only a couple weeks ago that our nation was brought into a state of shock with the death of Patsy Jack-Bowman from a landslide in the Ratho Mill area. There has been much discussion on the issue since then and on Saturday the programme “Letter from the Ground” highlighted the matter and drew very thoughtful comments from a number of persons. What came out strongly was the need to re-examine our state of readiness and ability to withstand a major disaster. It was felt that there were some deficiencies in how we handled that matter, a fact that led some persons to worry about our ability to cope with something on a major scale.

There are, of course, different aspects of the subject- disaster preparedness/ reduction; disaster management -. We always have to be in a state of re-examination for every disaster has its own set of dynamics and teaches us something new. We are in the midst of the hurricane season and have already seen the damage inflicted on some countries in the region- some 100,000 houses damaged in Cuba, 30,000 in Haiti and major damage also to homes in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Having not been struck by a major hurricane for a long time, we tend to take things too much for granted and to become too lukewarm, as though we are immune from any threats. We need, however, to keep this matter high on our agenda knowing fully well that any major disaster could undermine years of efforts at development. So the threat of disasters and our ability to handle them should always be in our consciousness. One concern which came out of the recent discussions was the need to decentralise the structure/mechanisms for disaster response. I have made the point on different occasions that when we were confronted not too long ago with an earthquake that was stronger than any we had experienced in recent memory few persons knew what they were supposed to do. Given the fact that we are constantly under threat from a number of hazards we need to be more educated about ways of preventing disasters and of coping with the impact of disasters. The Coordinator of CEDERA, in his message of reflection, did state that he wanted us “to reflect deeply on the safety of our critical infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, roads, bridges and utilities and indeed our individual and personal property.” Every year as we approach the hurricane season a list is provided of emergency shelters. They are usually Churches and other Public buildings. I don’t know to what extent they examine these structures before they designate them for that purpose but one can easily come to the conclusion from looking at some of these buildings that they will be the first to go in any major hurricane.

Really, the purpose of this article which pulls out a few thoughts on Disaster Management and Preparedness is to get us to talk more about matters related to these, to re-examine what we have in place and to make these issues everybody’s business.

US Presidential Election! A Disaster Waiting to Happen?

As the time draws closer to the big day in the United States of America, we can hardly avoid discussing the Presidential Race. The state of the World economy is alarming and the United States of America as the major player on the world stage is in a position to influence the direction in which things go. We in this part of the world are naturally alarmed at the state of the American economy and the continuing instability despite efforts at a bail out. But there is another matter that should concern all of us. The Republicans who at the moment are trailing in the polls are now playing to the worst elements in American society by reopening old racial fears and stereotypes. It has reached the stage where many are wondering what might happen if Obama fails in his attempt to get into the White House. Sarah Palin who has little else to recommend her in her efforts to become Vice President has become an attack dog of the worst kind, attempting to bring out the worst in the American people. Some persons attending her rallies even carried placards labelling themselves “Palin’s Pitbulls”. This is dangerous and one hopes that the majority of Americans would have already emptied themselves of those base values and feelings to which the Governor of Alaska is appealing.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.