-Kwakwani most severely hit as floodwaters surpass 15 ft

PRIME Minister Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips and a team of government officials returned to several of the flooded communities in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice) on Saturday last, with more flood-relief hampers and supplies.
Phillips, joined by Public Service Minister Sonia Parag and Public Works Minister Juan Edghill, distributed some 1, 200 food and sanitary hampers. As the floodwaters begin to compromise the water supply, the affected villages were also provided with water tanks and water-purification tablets.
According to a Facebook post by Minister Edghill, the villages receiving supplies include Lander’s Ville, Chiney Lane, Lamp Island, Hururi, Pottsville, Water front and Bamboo landing.
During the outreach, Prime Minister Phillips and his team also visited a number of the shelters that have been set up for persons who have been displaced by the floodwaters. Minister Parag, in a Facebook post, confirmed that the government is pleased with the operations of the shelters, which continue to adhere to strict COVID-19 protocols.
“For as long as citizens are affected, the members of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic government will remain on the ground, doing all that we can to ensure the well-being and recovery of all our people,” Parag said in her post.

This week will mark a month since Guyana has been battling continuous floods. The severity of the situation has forced President Dr. Irfaan Ali to declare the country in a state of disaster. The Head of State’s gazetted proclamation followed a notification from the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), advising that the floods have now been categorised as a Level Two disaster.
Under the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency’s (CDEMA) mechanism, this indicates that the national capacity to respond to the ongoing situation is not overwhelmed, but external assistance is required in the form of technical assistance and other specialised equipment and support in order to respond and recover from this disaster.
Despite Guyana’s situation being classified Level Two, the CDC in a press statement issued on Saturday evening said that the impact of the floods varies by region, with Regions One, Three, Four, Eight and Nine being at Level Two, given the national capacity to manage the impact.
Meanwhile, the devastating situation in Regions Two, Five, Seven and 10, has progressed to a Level Three disaster, based on the magnitude of the floods there.

BEYOND 15 FEET
In a brief telephone interview on Sunday, Preparedness and Response Manager of the CDC Major Salim October, related that water levels in some Region 10 communities still continue to rise. He confirmed that in Kwakwani, floodwaters have surpassed 15 feet.
“It rose to about one foot more,” Major October told the Guyana Chronicle.
He said that preliminary assessments have pegged Kwakwani as being the community most severely affected by the ongoing floods. “Kwakwani definitely [is] the hardest hit area; or that catchment between Hururu and Kwakwani,” the CDC official said.
Major October indicated that this assessment is notwithstanding that the number of persons and households would be less when compared to other regions
A recently released assessment report pointed to Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) as being the region with the highest number of affected households. As a matter of fact, that region accounts for some 26.8 per cent of all flooded households; Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) follows closely at 23.1 per cent.
“What determines severity is a number of indicators which includes [sic] economic impact [and] social impact; those are the two indicators that will determine the magnitude of impact,” Major October emphasised.

MORE SEVERE WEATHER

Unfortunately, even after a month of flooding due to persistent rainfall, Guyana is not yet out of the clear. The National Weather Watch Centre has advised that an approaching tropical wave is expected to interfere with the current stability of the weather.
Further, the centre has issued ‘Severe Weather Warnings’ relative to above-normal high tides which will remain in effect during the course of Monday.
“Precautions should be taken against over-topping of the river and sea defence. In view of the forecast conditions, continued rainfall will likely lead to flooding in low-lying and flood-prone areas and possibility of landslides over hilly areas,” the warning read.
Residents have also been asked to take necessary precautions to safeguard against the effects of possible mudslides, wind and lightning.

‘IN THE BOAT’ WITH SURINAME
The devastating floods have not been limited to Guyana; in neighbouring Suriname, eight out of 10 districts are inundated, affecting at least 8,473 households.
On Saturday, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) met virtually with the National Disaster Coordinators (NDCs) for both countries, to discuss the impact of the floods and the relief-management approach to be taken. Guyana was represented by Director-General of the CDC, Lieutenant-Colonel, Kester Craig, while Suriname was represented by Colonel Jerry Slijngard, who heads the country’s National Coordination Centre for Disaster Relief (NCCDR). The meeting, chaired by CDEMA’s Executive Director (ag), Elizabeth Riley, sought to explore the priority needs of both countries, as the agency looks to craft a system to prevent a ‘flood’ of unsolicited goods.
“Guyana was commended for implementation of a Tracking Matrix which allows it to update its Needs List, based on resource allocation, which CDEMA has promised to further discuss, with a view of synchronising the information,” a CDC statement explained.

It further noted that both countries were also asked whether there is a list of organisations to which relief items can be consigned, and whether duty-free concessions were being offered to these organisations, since there was an issue in a member state where containers purporting to transport relief items were found to be carrying personal items.
Lt. Colonel Craig explained that in Guyana’s case, the CDC is not providing concessions to items shipped to any organisation. He noted, however, that Guyana’s flood-relief efforts are being encouraged via a ‘coordinated approach,’ whereby supplies are handed over to the CDC for packaging, and then to the respective local government bodies for distribution to residents.
CDEMA also acknowledged Guyana’s request for technical assistance in the form of sectoral damage-assessment teams to assess the five severely impacted regions.
The regional disaster body further urged Guyana and Suriname to start looking at recovery planning, which is critical to accessing financing and livelihood planning.