False reports complicating damage assessment reports

With the passage of Tropical Storm Bret last month, the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) launched into damage assessment procedures to determine the social needs of the communities affected.

Its a process which Director of NEMO Michelle Forbes, said has “many moving parts”, and is further complicated by false reports.

Speaking on SVGTV’s Viewpoint programme aired on Sunday, July 16, Forbes spoke about the challenges that develop when persons submit phony information, and how it can delay the distribution of assistance to affected persons.

“The damage assessment has to improve to see how quickly we can analyze that data … when we collect that data is it handed over to another Ministry. It is important to do the assessment as well, because you have false reports and it is the engineers who then have to determine if you say your house is damaged but it was leaking all the time before the Tropical Storm… passed,” Forbes explained.

“ You would always have the social needs, the housing needs. We are a mixed population so you have to determine whether that damage you are really reporting is from the event or something that has been pre-existing.”

Forbes revealed that NEMO has been working to strengthen the social protection assessment since December, 2013, when the country experienced severe flooding. The damage assessment report at the time placed the cost of damage at $291.4 million, and 12 lives were lost.

Forbes explained that the damage assessment is done in two phases- physical to determine the housing needs and social, to assess the needs of individuals affected by the hazards.

“Most people see the physical, when you see the house breaking down we have to look at who lives in the house, the people- it might be one family or extended families.”

This, she said, is usually a collaborative effort with the Ministry of National Mobilization and the Ministry of Transport and Works.

Forbes said on the Saturday following the passage of Tropical Storm Bret, the Ministry of National Mobilization conducted the social assessment and they went to a house, and a gentleman called the office cursing, ‘why y’all have mobilization doing your work’, “and we had to explain to him the Ministry of Mobilization has to do the social assessment because they will then see the needs of the family and decide what social protection measures they will need to put forward and help the persons who have been affected.”