Elsa jitters

As Elsa, the first Atlantic hurricane of 2021, moves into the eastern Caribbean, Jamaica has been placed on a hurricane and tropical storm warning.

Ronald Jarrett, 70, has lived along Wickie Wackie Beach in Bull Bay, St Andrew, since 1995.

“I just heard about this last night, so I’m just covering my speakers with some tarpaulin and I think I might do a bit of laundry. As far as I heard, the system is passing to the north of us, so it shouldn’t be a problem here at Wickie Wackie. When it is passing to the south, then we have a problem,” Jarrett explained.

He remembers vividly the events of Hurricane Ivan in 2004, which he described as a “strong five”.

“It was 12 hours long. We had stones on the porch, so if you were sitting on the porch, if you didn’t drown, you’d be killed by stones,” he recalled.

Farming opportunity

For Errol Radway, a resident of Bay View, the expected rain presents an opportunity for him to sow some cash crops.

“As usual, mi jus a prepare wid nuff food and a nice time fi do likkle planting, that way mi nuh haffi use nuff a di Water Commission water,” he told The Gleaner.

Radway shared that he has also stocked up on water, kerosene oil, batteries and flashlights because of the unpredictability of Bull Bay.

“I have to be prepared because we can have power outage and probably cyah even reach downtown, so I have to get the things that I will really need,” the resident said.

Another resident of Wickie Wackie, Leon, said he has not made any preparations yet, but plans to purchase extra food.

“I’ve lived here for a good while. Since I’ve lived here, I haven’t experienced much from a hurricane because the sea nuh come up so far,” he said.

Acting director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), Richard Thompson, said assessments have been done across the country in preparation for the hurricane season which began on June 1.

“The preparation is well in place and we would have put all our authorities on standby for this weekend. Right now, it’s all systems go, all the parish disaster committees are on standby,” he remarked.

Some 867 shelters have been evaluated by ODPEM, municipal corporations, the fire brigade and the health ministry.

“They would have had isolation areas amidst the COVID-19 reality that we are still operating in. We had to ensure that from last year, so we would have put in place a new shelter protocol which looks at COVID as a backdrop to our preparedness,” he explained.

Temperature checks, sanitisation and mask wearing will be mandatory at all shelters.

Additional shelters

Considering that shelters are generally crowded spaces, the social-distancing protocols are being assessed.

ODPEM is now looking at additional locations to ensure that the population is covered in each community.

Thompson explained that there is added concern for northern and eastern parishes given their levels of vulnerability, as the system will be passing closer to them.

“We are expecting higher rainfall activities in those parishes and probably a higher degree of flooding if we should have flooding across the country. The closer the system is to any parish, then there is higher concern given the country’s vulnerability and especially in the mountainous areas for landslides and in the lower elevation for flooding,” he said.

judana.murphy@gleanerjm.com