Hurricane shelters capacity still below par
PHILIPSBURG – If a hurricane hit St. Maarten tomorrow –it won’t, but still – the currently available hurricane shelters would only be able to accommodate around 267 citizens, it appears from answers the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor provided to answers stmaartennews.com posed about the state of local hurricane shelters.
“We have to be prepared for the worst. There has to be sufficient shelter-capacity and that is not the case yet,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during his visit to St. Maarten earlier in May.
But what is sufficient? If St. Maarten has, say, 40,000 inhabitants – the number could be higher or lower – the currently available shelters can accommodate just 0.7 percent of the population.
But there is obviously no need to build shelter-capacity for all citizens.
According to the ministry, around 100 people made use of the available shelters before Hurricane Irma hit on September 6, 2017. After the storm, approximately 1,000 citizens sought refuge in shelters. The breakdown of this number is interesting: 400, including tourists, made use of registered shelters, while 600 (among them more than 400 tourists) fled into non-registered shelters.
Before the hurricane, the government identified eleven shelters – five schools, four community centers and two churches. They could accommodate around 500 people; that would be 1.25 percent of the population.
Right now, six buildings that functioned as shelter before and after Irma, can still be used as shelters. They can accommodate the earlier mentioned 267 people.
The ministry is in the process of finding other locations. This is why repairs to schools get high priority, because these buildings will be first in line to be used as shelters. The ministry also considers using the sports auditorium on the Pondfill as a shelter this season.
The ministry’s objective is to find enough shelters to protect between 800 and 1,000 citizens (2 to 2.5 percent of the population).
The ministry always encourages people to find shelter with family, friends or neighbors. In the past people went to hotels for shelter but that option is obviously out this season, given the massive destruction Irma inflicted on the hotel infrastructure.
While schools are among the buildings the ministry eyeballs for hurricane shelters, this choice is not an ideal solution. Schools as shelters remains a challenge, the ministry says, because once they are occupied by hurricane refugees, classes cannot resume until the displaced citizens can return to their homes or to a safe alternate location.
Looking at the future, and beyond the 2018 hurricane season, the ministry is developing a construction program to increase shelter capacity. The intention is to construct multi-functional buildings, financed by the European Union and the World Bank trust fund.
Hurricane shelters are a last resort for citizens who have nowhere else to go to protect themselves against the impact of a brutal hurricane. Staying at home, or with family or friends is the preferred alternative.
In the meantime, the ministry encourages citizens to adequately prepare for the hurricane season, by securing their homes, ensuring that they have survival kits and by identifying the safest spot in their home. The ministry furthermore recommends that newly constructed homes have at least one so-called safe room – a bunker style space that can be used as a personal hurricane shelter.
