Nigel’s diary entry from Garissa, Kenya – 12 December 2006

Situation.  With mostly blue skies and no rain for about 5 days, it is hard to see how the forecast of rains into January is going to come true.  Some roads are drying out, although a few attempts by The Red Cross and others to get trucks out on the main roads north of the Tana River have resulted in marooned vehicles and abandoned journeys.  However, a few of the big 6-wheel drive trucks, lightly loaded, have made it to Dadaab, where 160,000 Somali refugees live in long-term camps, but it will be a while until the road network opens up – even if it stays dry.

MapAction Settles to a Routine.  We have settled into a routine – start at 7.45am, work until about 6 or 7pm, set a print run/uploads going, break for something to eat and then back to the ‘office’ again to tidy up some tasks and finish off for the day. This morning Nigel and Jonny went to a logistics coordination meeting at the WFP compound on the edge of town.  Not an easy task with some of the roads flooded and difficult to pass, but the meeting, albeit a little later than expected, did produce some good information for a new ‘who-what-where’ map, which we will issue this afternoon.

The Focus of the Emergency is moving south.  The focal point of the emergency has moved south to the lower reaches and delta of the Tana.  Assessment reports by MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières ) from a reconnaissance flight there, indicate many villages partially or completely flooded – maybe 10,000 people affected.  The flooding there is more extensive and the delta people are farmers and need to stay with their land and villages.  We emphasised these urgent needs in our sitrep yesterday to OCHA and various agencies. The area cannot be reached from Garissa because the only linking road remains impassable.  Food, medicines, mosquito nets, water purification and many other non-food items will need to be brought into the southern zone through Mombasa to an airfield at Malindi.  One of the Ukrainian MI-8 helicopters, which is moving there from Garissa, will help distribute the aid. 

Back in Nairobi supporting the NOC.  Emerson meanwhile is still in Nairobi, managing the implementation of an entire IT system for the National Operations Centre.  Emerson’s intervention and cajoling have paid off and Kenya Telecom is now installing the appropriate connections to enable the NOC to talk to the outside world. The NOC people are reportedly delighted and several came in this morning, on the public holiday, to familiarize themselves and explore the list of web resources we have pointed them towards.  It is a revelation to many of them that such relevant emergency-related information is accessible at the click of a mouse.

Data Collection.  Yesterday we discovered, to the north of Garissa, the administrative office for North East Province.  There, a small NGO called Danida has a sparkling new GIS system with large format plotter and an enthusiastic GIS operator who is trying his beast to use the Arc 9 software – the same as we use.  He gave us some excellent data sets including locations of all the health clinics and schools in Tana River district.

The Rain Returns. At this point I am considering re-writing the opening paragraph. It has just started raining again. We hope it is just a shower, which will lay the dust and the mosquitos.