3 O ur Caribbean region is one of the most vulnerable in the world to natural hazards. However, we have made emergency shelters and infrastructure our developmental priority. This is ironic because events in recent decades in Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines have shown us that persons affected by major hazard impacts may end up spending months and even years in emergency shelters (Montserrat volcanic crisis). The time has come for us to adopt a new strategic approach to emergency shelters as a critical ingredient of resilient, sustainable development. I suggest we focus on four specific issues: Location Design Construction Governance LOCATION We need to be more vigilant with regard to planning for the locations for emergency shelters. There are many countries in our region in which shelters as are labelled as “post-event” facilities. This means we have to wait and see what happens during a hazard impact before they can be occupied as shelters. Shelters in future should be placed in locations in which the risks that could arise from hard impacts such as hurricanes and the potential not only for high winds but sea surge and coastal flooding, inland flooding, earthquakes (liquefaction), bush fires, rockfalls and landslips. We need also to recognise and plan for the prospect of shelters being “cut off” if bridges and roads are washed away or coastal roads are eroded. We need to identify such risks and as far as possible reduce them through better judgements as to precisely where the shelter should be. We clearly will have to plan for an inner circle of immediate risk and a wider outer circle of possible risk. Some of the damage in Dominica from Hurricane Maria. (Photo by Yuri Jones) DESIGN Most of the emergency shelters in the Region are public access buildings such as schools, churches and Community Centres. Did we pay much attention to the design of these buildings even though we could reasonably anticipate that they would be used as shelters from time to time? Continues on next page By Franklyn Michael Supplementary Associate CARICAD
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