Disaster Planning to Ensure Optimal Resilience

To ensure that the Cayman Islands achieves an optimal level of resilience in the event of future disasters, Government announced this week its disaster preparedness strategy. This will pursue immediate enhancements to the national hurricane plan in time for the 2005 hurricane season. It will also provide for the full ambit of emergency arrangements in the longer term.

Two independent consulting agencies — James L. Witt and Associates (JLWA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) — will be lending expertise to the development of a comprehensive national disaster plan along with supporting and enabling systems.

JLWA, a US disaster consultancy firm which has supported local services in recovery efforts since October 2004, will be tasked with improving, prior to the 2005 Hurricane season, the National Hurricane Plan. This work will take JLWA from mid-March to Mid-May, during which it will also introduce the concept of a National Emergency Management System (NEMS), exploring and defining the interrelationship of that system with the work of existing National Hurricane Committee (NHC) members and agencies.

Among its earlier activities, JLWA participated in NHC debriefing sessions, during which it gained first-hand knowledge of what the various sub-committees found as strengths and weaknesses. A number of these issues require attention before the start of this year’s hurricane season.

The UNDP, operating out of Jamaica, and which assisted with the development of the recent report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), is being charged with the establishment of a comprehensive NEMS over the next 18-month period. ECLAC prepared a comprehensive report on the impact of Hurricane Ivan on the Cayman Islands.

The UNDP project will be executed under the joint auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Environment, Development and Commerce, the Portfolio of Finance & Economics and the Portfolio of Internal & External Affairs.