Obey or risk death!

First responders warn Jamaicans who fail to comply with emergency evacuation orders

AS the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season approaches, with predictions for three to six major hurricanes, at least one of the island's top first responders is indicating that the lives of personnel will not be risked to rescue individuals who refuse evacuation orders before storms make landfall.

“The decision of the fire brigade is that we won't risk the lives of our fire personnel to save the life of somebody or persons who had prior warning to leave a particular community, but refuse from doing so. It is almost impractical to send out rescue teams in winds of 60 miles per hour with heavy rain. Remember, we have to travel on the road to get to these persons, and there may be blockages along the way [and] we may not be able to get in,” Jamaica Fire Brigade Commissioner Stewart Beckford warned yesterday.

“The advice from the Jamaica Fire Brigade to members of the public, and I believe that all first responders are on board with this, is, if the situation threatens the lives of first responders, we will not commit them into a situation, because we will now have to give an account to their families as to why we would have done something like that knowing full well the risks associated,” Beckford continued.

He, in the meantime, said the fire brigade is in a state of heightened readiness for the season.

“We have done training in urban search and rescue and collapsed-structure rescue, because if there is a hurricane there may be structures that come down and we may need to do search and rescue in those collapsed structures. We also have procured well-needed pieces of equipment — a number of rescue rafts — and these have been strategically deployed across the country in those parishes which experience has taught us are prone to flooding — Clarendon, St Catherine, and sections of St Ann. We have conducted training in swift water as well as dead water rescue,” the fire chief explained during a virtual town hall meeting staged by the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development yesterday.

His comments followed similar expressions by director of the Disaster Risk Reduction Centre at The University of the West Indies, Dr Barbara Carby.

Speaking on the issue of mandatory evacuations, Dr Carby said individuals who refuse to leave their homes during such times should be made to realise that they are acting on their own.

“I think there are some persons who decide not to move, in the expectation that if something bad happens they are going to get rescued. But... it is very poor disaster risk management practice to risk the lives of your first responders for people who have decided to take the risk of not moving themselves,” said Dr Carby, who is also a former head of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM).

“I always say, the decision to stay may be a decision to die, because you cannot send rescue people out in 60 mile per hour winds — it just simply cannot be done. So, after a certain point, they cannot be rescued. They need to understand that they will be on their own. Certainly, we should not put the lives of children at risk, the lives of persons who can't help themselves, the developmentally challenged. In thinking [about] those situations the authorities have every right to go in and take out those persons who cannot help themselves,” she said further.

Director general of ODPEM Richard Thompson said the issue of evacuations remains a sore point.

“Measures are in place to ensure that persons who are in threatened communities are responded to. The challenge, though, and we face it many times, is when you go into these communities it is sometimes difficult when you go in with the buses and many times persons refuse to move. There is a component in the legislation where you can prosecute persons when they refuse to move; it is something that poses a challenge, but it is also something the legislation provides for. We have to ensure that there is extensive public education around the subject of evacuation,” Thompson said.

Meanwhile, head of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica Evon Thompson yesterday said, based on forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, anywhere between 13 and 19 tropical storms are expected this year, with between six and 10 hurricanes, and an average of three to six major hurricanes developing.

He said, while there is no exact science to say which country will be impacted by what system and when, Jamaica could be hit by a category five system.

“We can't say who will be impacted, but this just could be our year; not only to have a tropical storm moving close to us, but we could have a major category five hurricane that comes and sits over the island, and we have to work out a way that we are going to survive after that hurricane,” the Met Office head stated.

Yesterday, ODPEM said there are 887 shelters across the island with 204 designated primary shelters.

The hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and runs until November 30.

A hurricane watch is issued 48 hours before a system is expected to hit, while a hurricane warning is issued 36 hours before by the Met Office. At the point of a warning, individuals must take action.