Bdos: Who's got time for present disasters?

No wonder CDERA is flipping Haiti-DR the bird! They've got bigger and better fish to fry. CDERA is prepping for World Cup 2007 in an age of Islamic terrorism, and that trumps helping Haiti in 2004.

WITH the emergence of an increasingly volatile global environment, the threat of terrorism is also emerging as a major concern for disaster preparedness agencies.

Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) Jeremy Collymore, says that while the agency is confident that the new facilities and infrastructure proposed for World Cup 2007 will stand up to most situations, the possibility of having to deal with a large-scale search and rescue event can not be eliminated or ignored.

With the region constantly being traversed by huge passenger liners and aircraft carrying thousands of visitors more so around the World Cup, it is anticipated that any attack in one of our major harbours would pose a significant challenge to security forces and emergency managers.

To this end, CDERA in association with the Central Emergency Relief Organisation will be carrying out a counter Terrorism TableTop Exercise in Barbados, June 16-17 to simulate a search and rescue effort following an attack on a cruise liner.

Haiti is a member of Caricom but not of CDERA; so, CDERA felt quite comfortable ignoring the Haiti-DR flood disaster. After all, World Cup 2007 is coming up; CDERA is focused on terrorism; so, who's got time for a lousy flood and the lives of a few miserable Haitians in the now? Yup, and so it goes because CDERA can't walk and chew gum at the same time.