 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton, and today we're going to be talking about the role of the National Emergency Management Organization, or MIMO. And today with me, we have the acting director of MIMO, Ms. Maria Meda. How are you doing? Hi, fine. Thank you. Feeling good? I'm good, yes. Yes, I'm good. All right. I'm largely talking about the role of MIMO in different scenarios. So first of all, I want to know what your organization's role is, especially with regards to disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction. Okay. MIMO, the National Emergency Management Organization. First of all, let us clarify what it is. To say that it is not the office at Bizet, which is the secretariat that supports the organization. Most people think of when you say MIMO, let me call MIMO. You call the secretariat and you expect the secretariat to handle whatever issue it is. MIMO is the broader organization made up of a lot of agencies, both public and private sector agencies. And each agency comes out to provide service that they normally do. So for instance, if persons call about a disaster or after, they call about a situation with a tree across a road. It is not the secretariat that actually goes to cut the tree or move it. It is one of the agencies, and in this case, it would be infrastructure, who would come cut it down, move it, however they do in their own area of expertise. Similarly, if a power line is down or if it's in a tree, low select would come to attend to that. So most persons would say MIMO, it is not the office personnel. It is the organization. So MIMO is actually in your community, but you don't really see it as MIMO. But all of these agencies come to play a role and play their part after a disaster. So basically that is what MIMO is, and it does. So you mentioned there are the public and private partners. You mentioned Lusilek. Who else falls under the private sector category? Okay. There are quite a few. And I would just name the general ones. You have WASCO, you have FLOW, you have DIGITAL. So they actually form. Right. Yes. What about the public sector? The public sector, well, you have quite a lot of agencies, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Infrastructure, Education, Housing. They are quite a few. There's SLASPER, which is statutory. They also make a part of MIMO. Okay. So as with regards to health, the chief medical officer is part of that organization. Yes. Okay. Now, you also hear about the organization NIMAC, or what's the difference between NIMAC and MIMO? Okay. In this case, NIMAC, we have said what NIMO is, NIMAC is the National Emergency Management Advisory Committee. And it is more or less of a governing body, a body that looks at policy for the organization. So when we look to make decisions and so on, it has to be approved and it has to go through NIMAC. So if, for instance, we are looking at a legislation or a policy, the organization looks at it and it is passed on to the body, the advisory committee for approval. Can you name a couple of the people who are on the advisory committee? Okay. You have the chief medical officer. You have the general manager of SLASPER. You have the executive director of the San Lucia Red Cross. You have the commission of police, head of SSU and so on. Okay. Now, as you are the acting director, what is your role exactly at NIMO? Okay. The role of the director at NIMO in itself is to assist with coordinating and pulling everybody together to be able to manage their functions in a disaster and in times of preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery and so on, which looks at the disaster cycle. The role of the director is quite, it's many and it is enshrined in the Disaster Legislation Act of 2006. So what sort of staff would you find at the secretariat? The secretariat staff is quite small. You have four technical positions in the estimates of expenditure and the balance of the staff. The other five, I think, are more administrative staff. So the administrative staff would be the secretary, the maintenance officer, inventory, the driver and so on. Okay. I want you to specifically speak on NIMO's role with regards to specifically hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes. Okay. NIMO's role in those hazards are more or less to look at preparing people. So you prepare your community, your residents to take precautions to make sure that their homes are safe, their livelihoods are safe. You look at training, building capacity. So the whole role is not just in a hazard when it comes to Hurricane or earthquake. You have to do the preparation before. And this is where it takes up a lot of our time. Most people think we are sitting waiting for hurricane season for a hurricane. But the bulk of the work is in preparedness, prevention. It's in the community on the ground level where we pull in the disaster committees who are all volunteers. And they themselves do the training, the preparation with the public, their sensitization. You have town hall meetings and so on. We'll almost do for our first break, but can you speak a little bit on maybe describe some of the training that persons would have to undergo, especially maybe the volunteers? Okay. Wow. It's vast. Just briefly. Okay. There is, for instance, you have the community emergency response training. And that is called a SUT, which trains different personnel. So you have fire, you have police in the community, the volunteers. You train them to be able to respond to a disaster. So after a hazard, they come in, they are able to find personnel, basic first aid training and so on. Okay. So as I said, we're due for our first break. We'll continue on that note in a couple of minutes. You're watching Issues and Answers. Stay tuned. We'll be back in a moment. The world's climate is changing and that affects all of us. Storms are becoming increasingly intense, periods of intense drought and heavy rain, stress farm animals and destroy our crops. Higher average ocean temperatures kill our coral reefs and change the migratory patterns of fish. St. Lucia contributes only 0.0015% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is doing its part, along with countries around the world, to reduce the emissions that are warming our world and changing our climate. These efforts are called mitigation, but decades of emissions have already changed the climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today will increase average global temperatures even more. We need to adapt. That is, do everything we can to prepare for and respond to the actual and expected negative effects of climate change and everyone has a role to play. We need to protect our crops, build homes that withstand storms and keep our drains and waterways free of garbage to help us recover or bounce back from climatic events. Learn more about the Government of St. Lucia's National Adaptation Plan and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your fellow St. Lucia's. Hi, and welcome back to Issues and Answers. We're speaking with Acting Nemo Director, Ms. Maria Meda, and we're talking about the role of the National Emergency Management Organization. OK, so now I want to talk about there are a lot of this I find in the public that tends to be confusion between the role of Nemo and the Met Office. So what what's I want to talk about what's Nemo's relationship with the Met Office and what is the function of the Met Office itself? OK, the relationship is more of two sisters. One works with the other. One cannot work without the other. Well, Nemo cannot work without the Met Office, put it this way. And because we don't have the technical capability or the technical capacity in-house at the Secretariat to be able to to handle the work that the National San Ocean Met Office does. So we rely on the San Ocean Met Office to provide us with the information as it pertains to to hydrometa activities, weather related activities. And once that information is is passed on to us, depending on the severity, then we would issue out alerts to the public. We would come in to say, OK, we are having an adverse weather event and therefore you need to do X, Y and Z. You need to take precautions. You need to be mindful. You need to be vigilant, etc. Right. So basically that is what the role of Met is in in disasters. That brings me to two things to ask you. Specifically, Nemo's role with regards to public information, especially in times of what you just described. And then I want to get into, while Met Office does provide you with the information you spoke of, you are not your organizations are not the one who makes the declaration of disaster. Who are the ones that actually do that? OK. The Declaration for the Disaster is done by the Minister with Responsibility for Disasters. And that is after consultation with the Director of Nemo, then a notice is issued for the Declaration of Disaster by the Minister with Responsibility for Disasters. Now, in San Lucia's case, it is the Prime Minister because Nemo falls under the office of the Prime Minister. Right? Right. I know some people don't. They believe that Nemo itself can can make that decision on their own. No. But I just wanted to clarify that for the public. And in terms of public information, what is your role in that? OK. That is one of our key functions at Nemo because we have to we have to get the nation in a state of readiness and to get the nation in a state of readiness means that you have to be doing the constant public sensitization, constant public awareness and education. We have tried again. I don't want to make any excuses, but because of staff constraints, we have fallen back on that. And so we have to do interviews like this one. We have to do press releases. We have to do town hall meetings, like I said earlier, get close to the public so that they can understand what you're trying to say. Speaking a language that they can try to understand. And most times when you send out information, you don't really get feedback as to whether or not the public has understood what you said. I know with some Facebook posts, you do get some sort of a feedback that you can analyze. And so so the whole idea of public information is one of the key key functions of Nemo to get people in a state of readiness. Because you bring up a very good point because I'm I'm in the field of communications. It is something that I'm cognizant of when you communicating with the public, it has to be very strategic focused on the different demographics. So I get that. That can be a challenge. It can be about the decision for evacuation. Who makes that decision? OK, evacuation of the island. In case there is a huge natural disaster. OK, again, that that responsibility comes with the minister who is responsible for disasters. Again, it is our prime minister and that is after the advice of the the director of Nemo. So once that has been done again, the notice is issued for evacuation. And in Sandusia, we know that the police under the under disasters, the police would would direct and guide where evacuation is concerned. OK, now I want to talk about the emergency operation centers and what your role is in their establishment. OK, the National Emergency Operations Center and most times we refer to it as the NEOC because it there is a difference because there's also called the District Emergency Operations Center, which is the DEOC you run on the district level. So that DEOC feeds into the NEOC when there is an impact, when we are impacted by whatever event be the fire and if we can hazard that NEOC is one that is staffed by decision makers. And it is key that it is staffed by decision makers and not just a representative, because at that point when the information is fed into the NEOC from the ground level, you have to be able to make a I want to say a decision that is is correct and that it is timely and it is important that it is timely because things are happening their life is happening and the decisions have to be made. So you're having a representative would mean that representative would have to call his or her head or the head of the organization and then it feeds back. So most times and as a legislated, it is decision makers who are supposed to be at the NEOC and decision makers like the the chief, the commission of police, the chief fire officer, the chief medical officer and so on. OK, so yeah, those people on the ground, I want to know what shelters, shelter managers and shelter officers. OK. The shelters, they are basically locations sort of of of how do you I want to use a word, but I need to be careful. But let's just say it is buildings that have been identified pre identified, I've been identified before. So we do it every year. You identify buildings if you use private buildings or churches and so on, you get the consent of the owner or the manager to be able to use them as shelters. These shelters can be either schools, you have churches, you have human resource development centers, you also have private dwellings or persons with dance halls, etc. These shelters are inspected structurally by infrastructure every year. Environmental health is supposed to look at the shelters, to look at the whole cleanliness, the whole environmental aspect of it, to make sure that toilets are working, proper water, sanitization and so on. So once they have done that, then we gazette and we say, OK, shelters are fine. Then you have shelter managers who are supposed to be the managers or the key holders of those those shelters. We go through some training every year. We try to do at least two training for shelter managers and in that area. So how they manage when they actually have shelter is in there. Now the shelter is a people who come in. So Nemo does not open shelters beforehand before a storm, unless it is absolutely necessary. The shelters are open afterwards and they are staffed by the shelter managers and shelter officers. As you said, the shelter officers would be people, the team who's comments to work in the shelters and all of them. Everybody, they are all volunteers. OK, we're due for our second and final break and we'll get into our final third segment. Stay with me. I want to have a few more questions for you before you leave. I know you have a lot of work to do as you're the acting director of Nemo. You're watching issues and answers. Stay tuned. We'll be back in a moment. If you are in receipt of an abnormally high bill, it is highly possible that you have a leak. That leak may not always be visible before you contact Wasco. Conduct a do-it-yourself test. One, record your meter reading. Two, do not use water for 30 minutes to one hour. Three, take another meter reading. If the reading changes, you have a leak. Contact a plumber to identify and fix the leak at the earliest. A message brought to you by the Water and Sewage Company, Incorporated, Wasco. Welcome back to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I am talking about, well, we are talking about the role of the National Emergency Management Organization. And we're talking with the acting director of Nemo, Miss Maria Mada. I want to thank you again for staying with us. I know you have you have a lot of work to do. Now, we were talking about shelters, shelter managers and shelter officers. I wonder if you can tell us where some of the maybe a couple of the current shelters are located? OK, not all of them because it's a large, not a large island. But it's, you know, yeah, we actually have two hundred and thirty five shelters island wide. They have been identified. They OK, let us look at a few, few areas. So like I said, most of the schools are shelters. For let us look at within this area, you can look at the Camille Henry school, they come in, Rene, the localary, the lady of Fatima, most of us know it as the La Clarey Church. There is also the Vidbute Sports Club. Which is is privately owned. You look at the Patricia D. James, the Vidbute, the Vidbute School, secondary and primary. So it's it's depending. Also as an example of the Human Resource Development Center, the Chase Gardens Human Resource Development Center is is a shelter. OK. And now you mentioned before we went on the break, briefly on volunteerism. How can one volunteer with with NIMO, with any any disaster, disaster risk management organizations? How can I if I wanted to volunteer, how can I do so? OK, we would love to have volunteers because the whole system is based on volunteerism. And you you can apply. You can go through your district disaster committee who would provide you with the form or you can call us at NIMO and you can register with us. We assign you to a district depending on where you live. Now, and I'm saying this because most people of the opinion that volunteering with NIMO means that you you have to be at the office in busy. The work of NIMO is not at the office in busy. It's on the ground level and it is a rewarding one from what I've heard from from a lot of the volunteers. And I want to thank those of them who have volunteered and who have been with us for all those years. And so after a disaster and even after a disaster and even preparing the work is in the community, you have to have that community relationship, understand your community, understand your people, the trade also because we train those volunteers to train other persons in the community to be able to speak their language, to understand them, to have projects, you know, in the community where they look at disastrous resilience, disastrous reduction. OK, so as you provide training yourselves, there's nothing there's no nothing I have to come in that's that's pretty required of me. No, no. Anyone can just want anyone can volunteer. If you have the skills, we welcome you. If not, we provide you with the skills, right? And some people come with other skills that we don't have that we can learn from and use. That's that's that's a good point. Now I want to talk about early warning systems in St. Lucia. What are some of the the means used for early warning systems? OK, in San Lucia, it depends on your community. Some communities still use the conch shell, for instance, and they the community personally, we still even up to what they like to do. OK, they understand what it means and especially the older folks so they understand that it is a warning. Although some of us, we have grown with the conch shell as fish, right? So they they understand depending on how it's blown and whatnot. We also use the town crier where you go, you use the bullhorn or the loud hail or drive around and provide the message. You can either speak to it or sound the alarm. We also early warning systems can also be a Facebook post and an Instagram post, a WhatsApp post. We also use an application called cap dot cap C-A-P dot C-A-P. It's available in your Google Play Store where anytime there's something serious and it's urgent, we would post that information for persons to receive. And it is not just weather related. For instance, I think during the Badni event, the landslide, we were able to post that with pictures. So if we have the pictures, it becomes available. And we know that there have been quite a lot of people who have done or did that app. So we know it works because you get snapshots of it back. So persons have received. We also have sirens in the communities of Ansleray, Canaries, Dennery and Marshall area. Marshall area for the castries area. So if for instance we have a tsunami or a serious flooding, you were able to sound that alarm to inform persons to evacuate. The siren also comes with a voice prompt that you can speak to the community. Okay. And could you talk a little bit about, this is more on a policy level now. NIMO's role in maybe the appraisal and review of programs and policies aimed at natural disasters. Okay. What we have done is there is something that is mandated by CDMA, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, which is a country work program. We met in 2020 and we were able to put that together. And I say we meaning NIMO, the whole organization. So each agency looks at its area and how it works with disasters, what is required in its area for disasters. And we were able to put that together and to come up with a country work program. So NIMO now would monitor and guide the agencies and say okay, what have you done in this area? How far do you go? What assistance do you need? And so on. Okay. Now we're very close to the end of the program. So my final question to you is actually about national committees. Talk about the role of national committees and when they are activated. The national committees are activated when we have a disaster. Okay. For instance, I want to use the more popular one, the Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis Committee, the Dana Committee. They also do initial damage assessments, which is IDAs. So after, let us use a hurricane for instance or flood we are all familiar with, they would go out into the community and they would make the assessments. They would come to you and they would say, okay, what damages did you incur? What and so on. Now, having said that, the Dana Committee cannot promise you that your house will be fixed. It is to make an assessment to gather the information and then that information would go to the necessary agencies, whether it be equity, infrastructure and so on. The Dana Committee is made up of Ministry of Housing, the District Disaster Committees, Social Transformation Ministry of Equity. So you'll see these people coming to you to be able to get the assessment. You also have the Supplies Committee, which is headed by the San Mocha Cadets. You also have the Transportation Committee. So there are quite a few of them. There are 14 of them in all and they provide that service. So they are basically the working committee of NIMO. And they also work along District Disaster Committee. Okay, I want to thank you very much for appearing on our program. We've come to the end. I hope you enjoyed your time explaining to us what you do at NIMO because it's something I thought that the public needed to know about, especially as we are actually still in the hurricane season. Yes. Again, thank you very much for coming. I hope you can come again at another time, especially to talk about, I suppose, future, I know, off-camera you sort of mentioned the disaster management legislation probably is down the line somewhere, but it will come up eventually. You're watching Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. Thank you for watching. Please stay tuned to other programming from the GIS and NTN. And thank you again for watching.