Hurricane Dorian - Update 4

Strictly speaking, I suppose that this isn't a Dorian update. However, on days when you feel like your wheels are spinning and you're not making progress it's nice to get some encouragement from previous work.

This week, in Indonesia, some toilets were opened:

Lt.Cols Lyn&Ced Hills, leaders of the #SalvationArmy in #Indonesia open new toilet blocks built for schools damaged by the earthquakes in #Sulawesi. All toilets have a ramp for children with mobility issues&are constructed according to #SPHEREstandards. @Legerdesheils @SpherePro pic.twitter.com/bFs2KAPSDU

— IHQ-ReliefDev (@TSA_Projects) October 29, 2019

I was the lead on the project discovery, research and development around 10-11 months ago. A lot of work went into these toilets that are going to support 16 schools. They are a big deal because not only do they have water (!), but they are accessible, they have change and cleaning facilities for girls and they have separate teacher's facilities for best child safe practice and teacher's morale. 

The toilets mean girls will go to school even if they are menstruating. They mean that kids will stay healthy because they can wash. They mean that kids are safe and teachers are supported. They mean that disabled kids can go to school. 

You may have guessed - I'm really proud of these toilets and so glad that our hard work last year has paid off. 

On a day like today, which I spent at a coordination meeting followed by training in a hot tent on how to use the new IOM and NEMA* reporting tools, stories like this are so good and uplifting. 

(*IOM are the International Office of Migration and NEMA are the Bahamian National Emergency Management Authority). 

Hurricane Dorian - Update 3

Tonight just a brief update to give some good news following Monday's post:

We received our food box the next day and have been able to supplement our MRE with coffee, tuna and a few other non-perishables! Very grateful. Our car also arrived on the ferry. I use the term 'car' lightly - it's more like a truck; a Dodge Ram utility. While I'm grateful for having the wheels, driving in the left hand seat AND on the left hand side of the road is taking some time to get used to.

We have had intermittent power the last few days, and we've been blessed by the disaster tech team from the US who have donated to us a wifi hotspot for our accommodation. It's dependent on the phone towers working, though... which is proving to be another thing altogether.

Most importantly our work has been going on. We've organised distribution of 10 pallets of water and 8 pallets of bleach so far. This will enable people who are actually able to repair their homes to start the work of mould remediation and clean up.

We connected with a baptist pastor who has had 6 families from his church return to the island. They are staying in tents outside his church and he was so grateful that we had water for them, as well as the potential to get them some cooking stoves.

Back in Australia, the Salvation Army refers to transformation 'one life at a time'. We saw that very much on the weekend. When we were going through the warehouse I found a wheelchair; Doug, a colleague, had met someone in a borrowed (and broken) one, so we set this new one aside for him.

When we put it in the corridor at our headquarters ready to be delivered it disappeared. Those of you down under will know that we are still skeptical about whether or not the Thrift Shop manager sold it... even though she denies this.

So we went back to the warehouse where we found another. On Sunday evening, Doug took it to the address of the intended recipient, a double amputee, only to find that he wasn't home.

A man came running over to Doug and said, "God has told me to send you to the church down the road". Doug... being skeptical again.... almost turned around but thought "why not". He drove down to the church where the pastor's wife flagged him down. She asked Doug why he was in the neighbourhood and he told her the story. As it happens, the pastor of the church was on his way to pick up the amputee and bring him home... while the church was praying for both his recovery and the supply of a new wheelchair.

You can only imagine their surprise when Doug pulled one out of the back of the ute!

Finally, another nice note. We were sitting in our first coordination meeting the other day. I always like to sit at the back and observe and listen at first. The emergency administrator for the island saw me there and (in a slightly embarrassing move) pointed out that The Salvation Army were in the room and asked me to come up to the front working table. The shield does open doors!

If this link works (!) it's some photos from our work here that are on the IHQ Relief & Development twitter feed at the moment:

Brad from @salvos Australia has now taken on the responsibility of the relief distributions on #Abaco island, #Bahamas. He is also making sure that relief & recovery plans and activities there are coordinated with the government & other stakeholders. @TSACARTHQ @saworldservice pic.twitter.com/MnfZQ7oCr9

— IHQ-ReliefDev (@TSA_Projects) October 24, 2019

Hurricane Dorian - Update 2

I'm taking time to do an update this morning, using my phone hotspot, as there's not much else we can do at the moment. We have no power, no water and no vehicle.

I am in Abaco, but fuel is rationed and we are waiting for the availability of our taxi just to go back to the aiport and hopefully pick up our food box (it didn't arrive on our flight). Last night we were very grateful to Team Rubicon, another NGO, who shared some of their MRE ("Meals Ready-To-Eat", similar to Australian Army Ration Packs) with us.

Once we've got food (!) for ourselves, the plan is to start the networking so that we can complete a more thorough community assessment and progress our work here. We're really late to the party in Abaco, but that said, the need is so great that I'm sure there will be plenty for us still to do. 

This picture, taken from weather.com is a few weeks old, however there has still been no debris removal on much of the island, so it's pretty representative:



It's hoped that debris removal will be done by hand, or at least with some care, in case there are bodies underneath still, but you would appreciate that the government are far more keen to use heavy machinery for the sake of efficiency.

The drama around deportations continues also. UNHCR delivered a stinging attack on the Bahamian government the other day, claiming that people are fleeing shelters and not seeking critical food or medical support because they fear deportation. The government have had this reported to them by many, including in meetings I have been attending, but they blatantly lied in their response to UNHCR saying they've heard no such reports.

Sadly, it's becoming such an issue it's also impacting aid delivery. A pastor of the Haitian Baptist Church in Nassau that was providing over 250 meals a day to displaced people was arrested during a government meeting and has not been seen since. As a result, the meals program is suspended.

Hurricane Dorian - Update 1

Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas as a category five hurricane in early September, killing scores of people and displacing many more. The Salvation Army has been operating in the Bahamas since the 1930's and have been working on response activities since day one.

Having arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday - after 36 hours in transit - I've spent the last two days being orientated to the overall programme we are offering. We are operating range of response projects over three key locations: Nassau (New Providence), Freeport (Grand Bahama) and the Abaco Islands. At the moment they are still concentrating on support for those that have been displaced to New Providence and distribution of necessary shelter and non-food items to those in Freeport.

We have three teams being established. Carolynn Barkhouse (Canada) is leading the team in Nassau, Zach Hodgeson (USA) is leading the team in Freeport and I will be responsible for the team in Marsh Harbour, Abaco Islands.

A key challenge that we are facing is identifying and locating people that need assistance. The worst affected communities were on Abaco, but consisted primarily of undocumented immigrants from Haiti. The government figures (61 dead and 860 missing) ONLY include Bahamian citizens. No undocumented people are included in any official figures or supports and this is despite 5-10,000 Haitians being in the worst affected area. It is possible that there are many bodies still under uncleared debris in this neighbourhood, but they are not government priority.

Also, the government are using the displacement of undocumented people as an excuse to conduct deportations. Some of these families have lived in the Bahamas for three or four generations but are now being placed on planes and sent to Haiti where they know no-one and have no means of support. It is also costing places like Abaco significant amounts of willing labour.

The rest of my week will be assisting the team in Nassau with community assessments in areas that were flooded, to see if we can utilise some of the many in-kind donations we've received to assist them. Then I will head to Abaco for the first time on Saturday and start to establish our next projects there.

The in-kind materials have been donated by Norwegian Cruise Lines and the Government of Puerto Rico, along with some United States organisations. We have somewhere between 800 and 1200 pallets of mixed donations that arrived with no inventory that we have had to store, sort and prepare for distribution. While the donation appears generous, it is costing a lot of time, storage and money just to sort through it and find out whether we can use it. Currently we have some of it stored at the local Coca Cola bottling plant (thanks to an advisory board member who works for CC) and some of it in a warehouse at the local Bacardi distributors.

We are staying at the Divisional Headquarters in Nassau, and it's pretty comfortable on our fold up cots. The warmth is welcome after a cold Tasmanian winter and the team we have of local and international staff is working well together.