NEMO conducts hurricane exercise
Judging from the number of calls to media houses, last night more than a few Belizeans were convinced that a hurricane was bearing down on Belize. In fact the scary weather reports and emergency bulletins were part of an elaborate bit of play-acting… but the purpose was deadly serious. Jose Sanchez reports from Belmopan.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
After the winds and flooding of hurricane Keith passed last October, it was clear that Belize was caught off guard. To prevent that happening in the future, government has organised a disaster simulation. Caribbean Breeze is an exercise by the National Emergency Management Organisation to see how their ten operational committees would operate in the event of another major storm.
Vaughan Gill, Deputy Chair, Communications and Warning
“The Weather Bureau would inform NEMO of the situation. NEMO then makes a decision on what step or what phase to implement of the hurricane plan. When that is done, it is then passed to the communications and warning committee. From there we disseminate information. There are four ways of getting the information out, so that if one system fails there’s another backup. The first system is through the radio stations and the media, by sending out notices and press releases. Also, the Belize Defence Force has a communication command centre here and in all districts throughout the country at district headquarters. They provide information there. The police also have their communication systems set up here and in all districts, in all police stations in the country, this information is relayed. So if the radio stations go down, the police will be there to pick up. Also, while permitted, we fax to all committees and all necessary interested bodies that we have the information. So we try to keep the information flowing as much as possible.”
Anita Zetina, the Assistant Operations Officer for Caribbean Breeze says that the fictional category three hurricane dubbed Leslie has been instrumental in testing their shelter management.
Anita Zetina, Assistant Operations Officer
“The exercise in terms of the timing started the first of October, this year during hurricane season. We activated in the preliminary phase, all the ten operation committees of NEMO. However the main focus of the evaluation will be on the housing and shelter committee to see how prepared that committee is to shelter people. And because people went into shelters, there are other committee’s that had to be activated, like the food and materials committee, the transport committee, but in reality all the committees are committees are being evaluated.”
After hurricane Keith, it became clear that most of the damage that occurred to shelters was not caused by strong winds but by the people seeking refuge.
Anita Zetina
“One of the things areas that we need to work on perhaps as NEMO is to educate the public as to how they should behave in shelters. You know you don’t go home and break up all your furniture, so why would you do that in a shelter?”
Hyacinth Wagner, Liaison Officer, Nat’l Housing/Shelter
“We have been gathering information countrywide with respect to the opening of shelters, the deployment of shelter management at the initial stage of the development of the storm, and we have also been evacuating people from San Pedro to the various district towns in these shelters. One of the main problems we had was communication in the Toledo District. We were unable to get reports because of the localities of these shelters.”
And though planning for a hurricane will never be easy, the logistics of this operation were worked out swiftly. And one important fact that has been realised is that each hurricane brings a different set of challenges.
Anita Zetina
“I think that both the experience from Mitch and Keith, as well as the different simulation exercises that have been conducted by NEMO, I think we’re seeing improvements in terms of communication, co-ordination, as well as in terms of record keeping, recording what is going in, what is going out, making sure that we follow up. I think they’re showing a little bit more co-ordination and people are taking it more seriously in terms of what their roles and responsibilities are in case of a real disaster.”
Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.
The hurricane season officially begins on June first. Belize’s most devastating hurricanes have usually occurred much later in the season, in September and October.
