|
19 May: Last Diary Entry - MapAction leaves Suriname Late Tomorrow |
|
|
|
|
Friday, 19 May 2006 |
The situation on the ground, while still a tragedy for the victims, is
no longer in emergency mode. The river levels are still liable to
fluctuations owing to heavy rain but the problem is largely a logistic
one, with medical/health issues an inevitable concern.
We sent forward Chris and Toby, early this morning, to go by helicopter
and boat, with separate Red Cross teams, to assess communities along
different stretches of river. Toby was displaced from two helicopters
and returned to camp, disappointed. Chris was more lucky. His journey
went better except.... no return possible by helicopter the same day.
Although we have good communications with him by satphone, he could be
spending a night in the jungle with the Red Cross team.
We have been producing different series of maps for a number of
customers including the UN security section, the Pan American Health,
and a number of other agencies. Over 50 maps have been produced and
uploaded onto the ftp site by the team and to the MapAction web site.
We have been in touch with the Netherlands MOD who wanted our maps,
owing to the employment of their warship now involved in relief
efforts.
We have set a succession plan in place. A local commercial GIS
company, with whom we had been in touch prior to arrival in Suriname,
will become our successor organisation in the National Disaster
Centre. Today we held a meeting with them and the UNDAC team, and
attended by the Surinamese military operations representative. A number
of broad technical issues were discussed, and we will begin to hand
over our data tomorrow.
At time of writing we are working flat out to get the maps ready for
the next daily coordination meeting which is held at 18:00 local time.
Our plan is to work during the morning tomorrow (Saturday) and then
leave for the airport at around 2 pm (hopefully with Chris!) to catch
our flight. We shall make a contingency plan in case Chris is unable to
make the flight.
So: that's it. This is the last diary entry from Suriname. A highly
useful mission, and our first major flooding disaster - excellent
experience, a different hemisphere (we went West for the first time
from the UK), and a new set of problems to solve. A challenge, and we
hope our efforts have contributed to helping the poor victims, and
their helpers.
|
Deployment Diary 
