3 weeks ago
5
The National Restoration of Utilities Committee (NRUC) recently held a meeting to look at plans and protocols that exist to get the country up and running again after a natural disaster. The committee gathered entities such as the National Emergency Management Organization, utility companies responsible for power, water, and communications, and even fuel suppliers, to assess the plans they have in place. While Belize has not seen any disasters three weeks into the hurricane season, the meeting was aimed at increasing efficiency and response times in the event of a disaster. Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy & Logistics, Dr. Leroy Almendarez, says that a major focus was to ensure that existing plans are up to date.
Dr. Leroy Almendarez, CEO, Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy and Logistics: “This committee becomes or activates itself or becomes activated after the all clear. So what we wanted to do is to really find out from all the entities that form a part of the committee whether or not their plans are in place. Because too often you hear comments where you might say “Okay communication is lost what’s the situation here and how long will it take ?,” Energy is down or electricity is down what’s the process here, how long will this last ?” And you know these are the kinds of questions that the public may ask. What our meeting was all about was really to look to see from the telecommunications, from energy, from fuel, we had a representative from BECOL, from BWS, these utilities what are your plans, your disaster plans. And your disaster plans are they updated because things change and reaction time that can be costly. And that’s one of the things that we learned that in fact they were ready, they had been looking at their plans and the expectation is that whatever upgrades need to be made to those plans that those upgrades will be updated so that we can coordinated and collate.”
Almendarez said that if the public is more aware of the protocols in place with respect to post-disaster assessment and restoration, it may foster greater patience and understanding of post-disaster.
Dr. Leroy Almendarez, CEO, Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy and Logistics: “Let’s just take Belize City for example. Right, one might take a look at Belize City which is our largest population center and from that discussion there’s an understanding that there might be at least feeders or more. I believe the eight was the number that was mentioned and the reason I mention the number is this. Let us say electricity goes off there are times when you might find out that there are adjacent feeders and so there might be restoration to feeder A, let’s just refer to it as A, but I live in B but my proximity I’m so close to those who reside within A but I did not, my feeder is not up. See people they have to understand that remember there will be an initial assessment of infrastructure damage and so you might find out that because of infrastructure damage in one feeder it might not be that easier to come up or to bring back up and people need to understand that. And it has nothing to do with who lives in the area. The priority areas will be areas where you might find a hospital, that will be a priority area because you will have normally you know they have to move patients because you might not be able to hold some of them so wherever a hospital in any feeder that a hospital is located that then would become a priority area.”
The committee will continue to meet routinely on a monthly basis, with unscheduled meetings called as needed in the event of a disaster.
English (US) ·