BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Thursday 30th September 2021)-Abdias Samuel, the National Disaster Coordinator at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and member of the COVID-19 National Task Force, has indicated that had Hurricane Sam impacted the Federation of St.Kitts-Nevis, such would have been challenging.
“… we want to advise the general public to do their best to continue their hurricane preparedness measures. Pay attention to your properties, ensure that you secure your work areas and also do your best to look for the vulnerable. We have a complex situation where we have COVID and where we’re looking at the sheltering process because you see that [Hurricane] Sam was a category four, and if that would have come into St.Kitts and Nevis, it would have been a challenging situation during this transmission that we are experiencing.”
Samuel, at the time, was speaking at the Prime Minister’s press conference held on Tuesday 28th September 2021.
He said St.Kitts-Nevis has identified hurricane shelters early and has learnt lessons on the topic from St.Vincent and the Grenadines.
“Based on what we learnt from St.Vincent and the Grenadines when the sheltering process is that from the lessons learnt, persons would have actually left the vulnerable at home [and] there was limited shelters to put the vulnerable, and in St.Kitts and Nevis what we have done is to have identified very early the centres that we will use.”
In relation to Hurricane Sam, Samuel said the storm is expected to remain at sea but cautioned that two other systems are showing signs of development.
“We all know that right now we are in the peak of the hurricane season which should end on the 30th of November. At present, we have major hurricane category four Sam which is located approximately 200 plus miles east of the northern Leeward Islands. According to our local Met office as well as the CIMH Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, it should steer off from the northern Leeward Islands so we are expecting it to remain a ‘fish storm’ meaning that it will stay at sea and it will not make landfall. I think we should continue to prep as we have been spared. However, it is very important for us to note that we have two other systems that are showing signs of development.”
He continued: “One is at 70 percent chance of developing within the next 48 hours and we have another one with a 80 to 90 percent chance of developing within the next five days so that means we have to remain alert and continue our hurricane preparedness measures.”
The NEMA official shared that the national framework is active.
“It’s very important for you to note that our national framework is active and has been tested with the last threat that we had to St.Kitts and Nevis. Our national framework and our national subcommittees, they have been actively meeting. Our volunteers, our district managers would have met last week to make sure that we’re in a state of readiness at the community level to be able to address the vulnerable groups as well as the vulnerable areas in the various communities in St.Kitts and also our colleagues from Nevis have been doing the same.”
As highlighted by him, NEMA has also been in touch with regional and international partners to ensure that they are ready to assist if St.Kitts and Nevis is impacted, including having discussion with CEDEMA and also U.S. SOUTHCOM [Southern Command].
“As a matter of fact, we had a discussion with SOUTHCOM, this morning where we were discussing sheltering issues and also the humanitarian assistance project; there is where we’re getting the two field hospitals from, and we got an update from SOUTHCOM regarding the arrival of the field hospitals. We were expecting to already have had them in St.Kitts as of September; we were pushing before we got into heightened peak in the season. However, there were some major delays due to some impact of storms to the United States because they are being fabricated in the United States and also due to the COVID challenges whereby a number of transshipment points are being affected. They have advised that one of the field hospitals should have arrived in St.Kitts on the 30th of September while the other one will arrive on the 8th of October.”
He pointed out that according to the trader and manufacturer, there may be some other challenges in the arrival of the field hospitals due to the impact of COVID on persons and some of the shippers, etcetera.
Samuel thanked the housing and shelter subcommittee for doing due diligence to their responsibility in ensuring that there is sufficient capacity to address the needs of the general public. He also thanked citizens in the diaspora for the donation of relief supplies and food items.
Residents are advised to pay attention to local media houses, met services, NEMA and Nevis Disaster Management Department for information as it relates to the hurricane season.