Overview Of The Dominican Red Cross Emergency And Relief Operations Following Hurricane Georges

摘要

On September 22nd of 1998 the Dominican Republic was devastated by Hurricane Georges. Winds reaching more than 110 miles per hour, and an aftermath that left 283 dead, this natural phenomenon became one of the worst disasters in Dominican History. The Dominican Red Cross instituted an Incident Command System. A supplies management unit was incorporated into the logistics section, and a needs assessment unit was placed within the planning section. Liaison officers were deployed to work for each of the local and international agencies involved in the incident. Emergency operations included search and rescue and EMS, shelter location, damage assessment and supplies management. Health Issues encountered included direct damage to the health infrastructure, environmental health issues including, garbage disposal and drinking water control as well as epidemiological surveillance and vector control. Challenges faced were directly related to poor communication and leading agencies, agency specific challenges related to limited resources and direct institutional damage from the hurricane Introduction The island of Hispaniola is the second largest island in the Caribbean. With 48,511.44 square kilometers the Dominican Republic occupies approximately two thirds of the island and shares the other third with the country of Haiti. With a population of 7,293,390 almost one third (2,677,056) live in the capital city of Santo Domingo (1). The Dominican Republic's economy is heavily dependent on sugar, tourism and recently a rapidly growing industrial component (2). The Dominican Red Cross (DRC) was founded in 1927, recognized by the International Committee for Red Cross the same year and admitted into the International Federation in 1931. The DRC has approximately 4,500 volunteer members, of whom 2,500 are men and 2,000 women. In 1998, the society had a total of 175 employees; 120 were based at headquarters and 30 in the branch offices (3).On September 22nd of 1998 the Dominican Republic was devastated by Hurricane Georges. With winds reaching more than 110 miles per hour, and an aftermath that left 283 dead, 595 injured, 64 missing, 865,510 displaced and 400,000 homeless persons this natural phenomenon became one of the worst disasters in Dominican History. (4) Lack of activation of the national emergency plan by governmental agencies led to improper preventative measures and subsequently made both the emergency and relief operation a significant challenge for all disaster agencies. Command Structure The Dominican Red Cross instituted an Incident Command System (ICS) (5, 6) with basic finance, logistics, operations and planning sections (Figure-1). The command structure incorporated both volunteers and paid providers in key responsibilities. The DRC Chief of Operation functioned as incident commander, the operations and finance sections were delegated to the assistant chief of operations and the executive director of the Red Cross respectively, The logistics section was staffed by supplies management trained personnel and the planning section was staffed by rotating volunteer and paid personnel as well as members of the members of the Caribbean delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross. Logistics management plays an important part in the success of any type of incident regardless of it's magnitude. (7).