Lester Blackett Attends Disaster Relief Exercise in Trinidad

By Claudia Liburd
Trinidad Reporter - SKNVibes.com

Director of Nevis Disaster Management Department, Mr. Lester Blackett

(Port-of-Spain, Trinidad) - Director of the Nevis Disaster Management Department, Lester Blackett recently attended the annual ‘Fuersas Aliadas Humanitarias’ (FAHUM) held in Trinidad from May 6th-16th, 2008 where regional and international government officials discussed disaster planning and management.

The conference themed ‘Connected for Good Regional Response and Integration’ is an annual disaster relief exercise which is implemented with a view to network experts in all aspects of disaster planning and management.

In attendance were representatives from Antigua/Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States.
Other international organizations in attendance included the USAID-Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, Pan American Health Organization, UN-Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Conference of Central American Forces-Humanitarian Rescue Unit, and the Conference of the American Armies.

The St.Kitts-Nevis delegation included Perry Peets of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Dr. Dwain Archibald, Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health and Lester Blackett, Director of the Nevis Disaster Management Department (NDMD).

Blackett spoke with SKNVibes.com explaining that the exercise was held with a view to test the ability to register mutual aid amongst countries as well as to introduce participants to the latest technology in the field of disaster management.

“This year’s exercise allowed the participants to test their ability to render mutual aid between countries as they may be called to do in a disaster situation under agreements of mutual assistance. In El Salvador the scenario revolved around an earthquake with a view to bring Belize, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to work together at the request of the Salvadoran Government.

“Panama and Costa Rica worked together via their national emergency operations centers on a scenario of an earthquake along their shared border while countries of the Caribbean Basin will work together and use an avian influenza scenario to analyze their sub-regional response mechanism within the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) framework,” he said.

Blackett also noted that one of the components of this event was a trade exposition that provided participants with an opportunity to see the latest in disaster management items and introduce participants to organizations involved in disaster planning and mitigation.