In a joint press statement CCRIF and CIMH said the hurricane season starts in four months; on June 1, and Haiti’s population remains amongst the most vulnerable in the world to rainfall, flooding and landslide hazards. United Nations representative for disaster risk reduction Margareta Wahlstrom warned recently that “There are probably 200,000 families without a roof,” and urged the international community to take measures so that “their disaster, that has already destroyed much of their life, is not exacerbated further.”
In the light of these concerns, CCRIF and CIMH said they will extend support to Haiti in its long-term recovery and reconstruction efforts, particularly in hazard mitigation and future disaster prevention. CCRIF will support CIMH in making available tools and data to help planners and relief workers in Haiti to make better decisions about where to re-settle the citizens of Haiti and re-build infrastructure to minimise people’s exposure to flooding and landslides, especially since the hurricane season is imminent.
The release said immediately after the earthquake the two entities recognised the critical need for the availability of more detailed rainfall data for Haiti in order to reduce future disasters in light of the country’s current high levels of vulnerability. CIMH started running high-resolution weather prediction models over Haiti daily which, according to Dr David Farrell, Principal of CIMH, “will provide early warning for potential heavy rainfall events over major watersheds, especially those in the earthquake impacted areas.” He said this data is important for informing rescue and recovery efforts in earthquake-impacted areas and indicating hydrometeorological risks to resettlement camps especially those in, or close to, low lying areas and stream channels.
According to the release the 4km resolution, 48-hour rainfall forecasts can be accessed at: http://63.175.159.26/~haiti. It said the data may be used freely by the public (without modification) with appropriate acknowledgement of its source and an appreciation of the uncertainties present in the predictions. In addition to the weather model, CIMH will be developing simple surface water flow models for key drainage basins to outline the extent of probable flooding. These models, in conjunction with the historical rainfall record derived from the CCRIF Caribbean rainfall model, will be refined to develop flood hazard maps for critical basins.
The release said this information will be available in time that will allow it to further inform the planning of longer-term re-settlement sites and will help decision makers and disaster experts identify those watersheds with high flooding potential that are prone to flooding, in particular flash flooding. CCRIF, with support from CIMH, already provides real-time hurricane hazard forecasts for all its member government. This service will again be further enhanced for the 2010 hurricane season.
CCRIF and CIMH view their support for Haiti at this time as a fundamental opportunity to contribute to that nation’s sustainable and resilient reconstruction. It believes its support forms part of the organisations’ corporate social responsibility for contributing to the sustainable prosperity of Caribbean countries.
The CCRIF and CIMH are hosting representatives from the Caribbean disaster management, meteorological and finance communities at a workshop in Barbados later this month to learn about the new CCRIF/CIMH rainfall model and to review the role of CCRIF and the level of coverage currently provided to Caricom governments within a broader risk management framework and in the light of the level of impact seen from the earthquake in Haiti.
CCRIF is a risk pooling facility, owned, operated and registered in the Caribbean for Caribbean governments. It is designed to limit the financial impact of catastrophic hurricanes and earthquakes to Caribbean governments by quickly providing short-term liquidity when a policy is triggered.
CIMH is a training and research organisation created to improve the meteorological and hydrological services for the economic well-being of Caribbean countries.
