St. James Municipal Corporation Prepared For Hurricane Season

The St. James Municipal Corporation is reporting that it is “prepared and ready” for the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, which starts on June 1.

Chairman of the Disaster Preparedness Hazard Mitigation and Safety Committee  and Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Leeroy Williams, said that despite the challenges brought  by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,  the Corporation has the capacity to respond in ensuring public safety in the event of a hurricane.

He noted that shelter managers have been trained and equipped with the necessary resources.

“We do have 63 shelters across the parish and shelter managers are well prepared. For example, they do have their kits, which include waterboots, raincoats and flashlights. They also have personal protective equipment (PPE) and that would include, of course, masks and hand sanitisers because we also have to look at the COVID-19 spread,” he said.

Mayor Williams, who was addressing a media briefing on Thursday (May 27), informed that the Corporation is collaborating with various emergency response agencies to handle any eventuality that may arise during the hurricane season.

“We are in contact with our first responders – fire department, Red Cross, public health services, and they all say they are in a state of readiness,” he said.

He noted that other agencies have been mobilsed to provide assistance in the event of occurrences such as land slippages.

“So we have the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and the National Works Agency (NWA) and… they are prepared and ready in the event that there is a disaster,” the Mayor shared.

He said that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development will allocate the necessary funding for drain cleaning across the parish’s 17 divisions in preparation for the hurricane season.

For her part, Parish Disaster Preparedness Coordinator, Tamoy Sinclair, informed that 85 per cent of shelters across the parish have been inspected and given the green light to house residents in the event of any eventualities.

She noted that the inspections are being carried out in collaboration with the Jamaica Fire Brigade, the Public Health Department and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and assured that all facilities will be up and running for the start of the hurricane season.

The Parish Disaster Preparedness Coordinator said that isolation areas have been identified at each shelter and a protocol developed for the operation of the facilities during the pandemic.

“We have adhered to the national shelter management protocols, which dictates and stipulates the procedures for COVID-19 and this has also been shared with the shelter managers,” Ms. Sinclair said.

“Each shelter manager would have been provided with information in terms of how they would [deal with] persons coming in,” she further noted.