Diary update from the UK Base - Monday 4th December

A busy start.  Nigel and the team have been busy all day and did not have time to write a Sitrep, but here is a brief picture from our contact with them today.

Initial preparations.  They are certainly in good heart, although working hard and Emerson has had a day of real challenges to maintain some means of communication.  Chris and Jonny too have been busy collecting data and together with Nigel they have had lots of preparatory work to do and many meetings throughout the day. Nigel visited the National Operations Centre first thing to brief the Director.  The aim is to offer ‘capacity building’ in the form of one or two workshops to introduce Information Mapping. 

Nigel and Chris to visit Garissa.  Early tomorrow (Tuesday) Nigel and Chris will be travelling to Garissa with the UN to assess the situation and prepare a plan should the UN decide to set up there.  Garissa is a regional hub to the north east of Nairobi and the centre for support in that area.  The roads are passable but not easy and they do not expect to be back until Thursday.  More rain is forecast and so the situation is unlikely to improve and Garissa will become an even more important centre of operations.  Depending on what they find, the options are to set up a forward base there and rotate people through or to relocate the field base there.

Mapping.  On the mapping front, the aim this week is to produce 2 or 3 maps focusing (probably) on the where, what and when assessment analysis and affected populations.

Reinforcements.  As always more GIS hands are needed and Darren will fly out to join the team on Thursday and stay for the duration.

Next update.  I think that we are unlikely to get a good update from Nigel until he returns from Garissa on Thursday.  In the meantime we wish them all success in their mission.