CDEMA official credits Guyana

CDEMA official credits Guyana for effective independent flood management programme

As British Virgin Islands and Jamaica seek outside help for flood problems
THE Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) is retooling implementation of the regional flood hazard management programme, citing the current unsettled weather conditions and an unprecedented scale of flooding experienced by a string of Caribbean countries over the past few weeks.

According to CDEMA executive director Jeremy Collymore,  there can be no mistaking that floods pose the most frequent threat to the region.

He added that after more than five years after the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) implemented the regional flood  hazard management programme, not all regional states have fully  embraced the initiative.

References were drawn to Jamaica’s need for more than US$110 million to deal with infrastructural damage caused by recent floodings.

This, he suggested, could have been better addressed through the CDEMA programme if there were widespread regional support for the Barbados-based organization.

A few months ago, the St. Lucia government was forced to declare parts of the Island a ‘disaster zone’ after nearly 100 homes submerged in water caused by unprecedented floods.

Flooding have also occurred at previously unseen proportions in Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, St.  Vincent  and the Grenadines, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Belize, leading to hundreds of millions in losses within the last six months alone.

The Barbados based body added that Jamaica and the British Virgin Islands are now looking for external assistance.

According to Philbert Saunders, another CDEMA official, compared to other Caribbean states, Guyana has been spared the wrath of catastrophic flooding most likely because of an aggressive and relatively successful programme that was implemented by the Guyana Government a few years ago to challenge flooding, primarily on the coastal belt.

He opined that the current bits of ‘scattered flooding’ being experienced mostly along the coast is at a controlled and fairly manageable scale that may not require any emergency intervention now or in the foreseeable future.

This, he said, may be signs that the Guyana Government’s flood management contingency plans are working.

He added, however, that the Caribbean region (including Guyana’s) flood management challenges are far from over and that a Regional Flood Management programme must be fully embraced, especially in light of other long-term flood threats attributed to global warming and rising sea levels.