NEMO, CEMO and Channel 5 structurally sound
Phillip Willoughby
CEMO recently announced a major change for this hurricane season. And that is that this season our facilities here on Coney Drive are to be used to house CEMO operations. The background is that the matter was discussed since last year under the previous council, which was looking for a safer facility. The decision was based on the recommendations of engineers that determined that the structure of our building is strong enough to withstand a hurricane. This afternoon, a team from NEMO did a walkthrough of the building to re-confirm the viability of the structure.
Phillip Willoughby, Security & CEMO
“Well firstly we used to use the Charles Bartlett Building or the Complex Building as it is known, as the E.O.C.; not saying that it won’t ever be utilized again but we had concerns in terms of utilizing the building in the past but the front face of the building is mostly of glass structure and we are saying if the building is breached in anyway, there are other anomalies that will undermine the glass, then we will be putting the CEMO team and other agencies that work along with us, in danger provided that building ins breached. Looking at that then, the interior of it has two stairways up to the top floor and we would be cut off from the two sections that we used as the conference room or the administrative section of the building. With that said, our engineers set out to look at and identify suitable building with all aspects involved; that it meets the criteria for it to be deemed as our E.O.C. in time of a hurricane. We came up with this building and we will be utilizing the third floor as the structure has proven itself, according to the engineer, it is suitable for us to utilize and that is where we are. We had a walk through this afternoon for the committees and we are quite satisfied that there is enough room for us to utilize the structure.”
That is excellent news. I hope that NEMO is no longer the lousy bureaucracy it was in 2001 when Hurricane Iris hit the south.
I was part of a convoy of boats that left Caye Caulker with supplies. We left some at Mango Creek, Placencia and finally made our way to PG where most of the damage happened at the maya villages.
Following protocol we surrendered all the supplies to NEMO “most of which were purchased with our money, or donated by individuals and businesspeople”.
TWO DAYS PASSED and NEMO still had all the supplies stockpiled at the elementary school, citing that they did not have transportation to take it to the mayan villages.
We managed to secure two trucks and asked NEMO to give us back our supplies because we had transportation to take it to the needy people ourselves.
NEMO staffers said that they could not give us back the supplies because they were now property of GOB. And that they would do the distributing whenever they had the transportation.
AT THE AGE OF 18 THIS WAS THE MOST DISTURBING THING I HAVE EVER HEARD FROM A GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY.
People were without food, water, shelter, tools to rebuild and NEMO would not let us have our supplies back because it appeared that they were more interested in telling the needy people that GOB was helping them, regardless of how late that help arrived.
We decided to not sit idly by and went to the hardware store and purchased some tools, drove to San Antonio, and other smaller villages who’s names I do not remember and assisted in reconstructing the school houses. The mayan people were very appreciative of the help and joined us in the reconstruction efforts.
I must applaud the school teachers from PG, because they would cook for us and bring us meals in the mornings and evenings. Before and after we would go out to the villages and help reconstructing.
11 years have passed since NEMO proved to be nothing but an organization that was stockpiling rations while people were out there starving after a horrible hurricane, I sure hope they have improved over time and are no longer interested in making needy people know that the help is from GOB but simply provide help where its needed regardless of where the help is coming.
There is no space for bureaucratic nonsense when people are starving in the field.