Operational leaders of EOC meet to discuss preparations and state of readiness for Hurricane Season

 

Fire Commander/Disaster Coordinator Winston Salomon met with representatives of the Island’s Disaster Emergency Management Organization the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on Wednesday morning to assess preparations and state of readiness for the 2010 hurricane season that started on Tuesday, June 1.

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With up to 23 named Tropical Storms forecasted for the season, of which eight to 14 could develop into a hurricane, and of those, three to seven could become major hurricanes of category three or higher with sustained wind speeds of 111 miles per hour and above, Disaster Coordinator Salomon is calling on the nation to be ready in the event of a hurricane threat.

Eight of the 10 Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) were present for the meeting. The focus of the EOC/ESF meeting which took place in the conference room at the Cay Hill Fire/Ambulance Department Building was about operational plans, prepositioning of equipment, inventory of resources, status of pumping stations, hurricane shelters, debris clean-up, trench clearance, future structure of the disaster management system post 10-10-10, and looking into the possibility of setting up a volunteer database.

A confirmed listing of hurricane shelters is expected within short and will be announced via the media.

The clearing of all trenches on the South side of the island is expected to take 20-days and would be carried out by approximately 19 contractors. The cleaning of the trenches is expected to start sometime in June.

A clean-up of Sint Maarten of debris is in the planning and the logistics are being sorted with respect to this.

ESF operational and deputy leaders represented were from ESF-2 Telecommunications, ESF-3 Public Works, ESF-4 Fire Department, ESF-5 Police, ESF-6 Public Health, ESF-7 Social Welfare, ESF-8 Government Information Service (GIS), and ESF-9 Island Secretariat.

The 2010 Hurricane Season name list is: Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Igor, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie and Walter.

The 2010 hurricane season officially runs from June 1 through November 30.