Jamaica remains on track to have a record year in tourism as the island continues to register growth of over 5 per cent for both tourism earnings and visitor arrivals.
From January to October 2016, Jamaica recorded earnings of US$2.06 billion, which represents an increase of 5.7 per cent over the amount earned for the same period last year, the Ministry of Tourism yesterday reported.
The island also registered an increase of 5.1 per cent in visitor arrivals over the same period last year, with 3,100,235 visitors in total, the ministry said in a release. Growth in both arrivals and earnings came despite Jamaica suffering a loss of over 8,000 visitors during the passage of Hurricane Matthew.
Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett said: “The latest figures from the Jamaica Tourist Board are truly proof of the strength of Jamaica’s tourism product. We have consistently recorded growth throughout the year, though over 8,000 potential visitors cancelled their trips due to the passage of Hurricane Matthew in October”.
During the first 10 months of 2016, stopover arrivals also increased by 2.3 percent over the same period last year, with 1,786,394 visitors, while cruise arrivals increased by 9.1 per cent over the same period in 2015, totaling 1,313,841 cruise passengers, according to the release.
“Our arrival figures and tourism earnings, from January and October of this year are very positive and an indicator of the considerable impact tourism is having on the growth agenda. Our tourism earnings continue to outpace our arrivals, which is quite significant. It is clear, that we remain on track to have a record year in tourism,” said Bartlett.
Latin America and Europe were Jamaica’s strongest markets during the period January to October. Stopover arrivals from the Latin American market were up by 26.6 per cent over the same period last year, with 2,803 visitors. Arrivals out of Europe increased by 10.5 per cent, over the same period for 2015 with a total of 21,870 stopover arrivals, the ministry reported.
Tourism, Travel, Hospitality, Conservation: News,Stories And Experiences From Allover The World
Showing posts with label Hurricane Matthew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurricane Matthew. Show all posts
Friday, 9 December 2016
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
HAITI: Hurricane Matthew Dangerous, Comes With Cholera
Haiti faces a crisis that requires a "massive response" from the international community, the United Nations has said, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid after Hurricane Matthew.
The storm killed almost 1,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation, with that toll expected to rise as rescue workers reach previously inaccessible areas.
Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, last week levelled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, leaving victims pleading for help to arrive quickly.
"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.
The United Nations has launched a $120m flash appeal to cover Haiti's needs for the next three months.
Haiti's interim president has warned his country risks "real famine" following the "apocalyptic destruction" of Hurricane Matthew.
Jocelerme Privert said famine could take hold within three to four months if the situation was not managed properly.
It comes as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for a "massive response" to help the country.
After pummelling Haiti on October 4 as a monster Category 4 storm, packing winds of 230km/hr, Matthew slammed into the southeastern United States, where it killed at least 20 people.
Hundreds of people were rescued by boat and helicopter as floodwaters inundated towns in the state of North Carolina on Monday, and officials warned that life-threatening flooding from swollen rivers would continue for days.
The category-four storm is believed to have killed as many as 900 Haitians.
It has also wiped towns and villages off the map, destroying tens of thousands of homes, crops and food reserves.
Mr Privert said the loss was "amazing", saying food, water and medicine was immediately needed.
In Haiti, more than 300 schools have been damaged, while crops and food reserves were destroyed, Ban said.
UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien said that the hurricane had triggered the worst humanitarian crisis in the country since the 2010 earthquake.
Nearly 300,000 Haitians are in shelters across the country, and damage to roads and communications has hampered deliveries of supplies.
"I understand of course the frustration," Jean-Luc Poncelet, the country representative for the UN's World Health Organization, said after arriving at the airport outside Jeremie, one of the worst-hit cities.
"When you have no means of communication, no radio, no telephone, no roads and even a helicopter can't land - this is what explains the massive delay," he said.
The UN's World Food Programme tapped into food stocks previously set aside for schools to feed hundreds of desperate families, spokesman Alexis Masciarelli said.
"But the concern is if we don't take action now for the longer impact... three to four months when the foods stop coming we are going to have a real famine."
He described seeing "apocalyptic" destruction. "What I saw with my eyes yesterday will take a lot of effort to work on the reconstruction part of what has been destroyed," he said.
Matthew was the strongest hurricane to hit the region in a decade.
The UN has launched an emergency appeal for nearly $120m (£97m) in aid to cover the next three months.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr Ban said: ""Hundreds have died; at least 1.4 million people need assistance at this time.
"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map; crops and food reserves have been destroyed; at least 300 schools have been damaged,"
The UN humanitarian agency issued the appeal to help provide "life-saving assistance and protection" for 750,000 people in south-western Haiti over the next three months.
Officials were still struggling to reach the hardest-hit areas, the agency said, with communities in need of food, clean water and clothing.
There were growing fears that flooding could cause a cholera outbreak similar to that after the 2010 earthquake.
The waterborne disease reached the island via Nepalese UN troops, causing the deaths of nearly 10,000 people.
A treatment centre in the town of Jeremie has become overcrowded with not enough beds for patients, and some of them were being forced outside, reports said. Many of the cases involved children.
Other countries including France and the US have pledged to send aid. The Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal for $6.9m (£5.6m) and Unicef said it needed at least $5m to meet the immediate needs of 500,000 affected children.
Meanwhile, at least 21 have been killed by Matthew in the US, 10 of them in North Carolina, most of them swept away by flood waters.
"Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly," Governor Pat McCrory said.
There were also four deaths in Florida and three each in Georgia and South Carolina. One death was reported in Virginia. Nearly 1.2 million people were without power.
US army helicopters were unloading boxes of supplies from the US Agency for International Development to be stored by the UN in Jeremie before being taken to other parts of the south.
Honduras, which maintains a force of 60 troops in Haiti as part of a UN peacekeeping mission, was sending a planeload of aid on Tuesday, along with 50 military officers to help the victims, President Juan Orlando Hernandez said.
But getting aid to Haitians now reduced to drinking unclean water and living in roofless houses will be challenging.
On a road crossing the mountainous centre of the peninsula, some villagers blocked roads in an effort to stop aid convoys from passing through without delivering supplies.
Haiti is also grappling with a worsening cholera outbreak in the storm-hit areas.
Matthew came as Haitians were already struggling with the intestinal disease spread by contaminated food and water, with more than 500 new cases each week.
UN peacekeepers have been blamed for introducing the disease to Haiti, where it has killed 10,000 people since October 2010.While some towns and villages reported an apparent spike in infections since the storm, Poncelet said "the number of cases of cholera that we have confirmed are low".
He declined to give a number, but said there were "tens" of cases in one area of the peninsula.
While evaluation teams were working to get a precise picture of the health situation, medical supplies were being brought in, he said.
Mourad Wahba, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country, urged aid organisations to focus on delivering supplies to smaller rural communities, where many families survive on subsistence farming and have had all their crops washed away.
If aid is only delivered to cities such as Jeremie and Les Cayes, villagers will flock there for supplies and never leave, leading to overcrowding.
"We must think about developing a plan, to coordinate support and deliver it where it's most needed and not where it's easiest to access," Wahba said.
USA
When Hurricane Matthew dumped torrential rains on North Carolina, thousands of people found themselves suddenly trapped in homes and cars. Rescuers in Coast Guard helicopters plucked some of them from rooftops and used military vehicles to reach others, including a woman who held on to a tree for three hours after her car was overrun by flood waters.
In another dramatic rescue, a woman with her small child perched on the roof of her car had to be helped to safety as the waters rose around them, underscoring how quickly Matthew wreaked havoc 160 kilometres or more inland after sparing much of the Southeastern coast the catastrophic damage once feared.
The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 17 in the U.S. — nearly half of them in North Carolina. Gov. Pat McCrory said authorities were searching for five people and feared they may find more victims. The problems were far from over as all that rain — more than a foot in places — flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing days of major flooding in many of the same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
“Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly,” McCrory said.
More than a million people in South Carolina and North Carolina were without power, and at least four separate sections of Interstate 95 — the main artery linking the East Coast from Florida to Maine — were closed in North Carolina.
The ferocity of the rain caught people by surprise.
“The forecast said it wasn’t supposed to be anything major. Just rain and wind. Well, considering what happened weeks prior with the rain and combined with this, Mother Nature’s at its best,” said Lamont England, who was trying Sunday to get to his parents’ home in Fayetteville.
In Wilson County, rescuers were called when a 63-year-old woman didn’t make it home from work. They heard her cries for help while riding on top of a Humvee, and when they couldn’t get her with a rope, a National Guard soldier swam to her, staying until a rescue boat arrived, Emergency Management Director Gordon Deno said.
Even animals had to be saved. WRAL-TV showed a dog swimming around floodwaters Saturday. McCrory said he and his wife were riveted by the coverage and relieved to find out from the Coast Guard that the dog managed to get into a tree and rescue it.
Most of the dead were swept away by flood waters. The governor said there were rural areas that search and rescue teams hadn’t been able to make it to and places that flooded overnight.
“There could be some backroads where we had people swept away. I’m praying that is not going to be,” McCrory said.
The rainfall totals were staggering: Nearly 38 centimetres in Fayetteville and 20 centimetres in Raleigh. McCrory warned that cities along rivers in eastern North Carolina needed to be prepared for days of flooding. The Lumber River in Lumberton was 4 feet above its record level Sunday afternoon and was forecast to remain there for at least five days.
Shortly before daybreak, the hurricane was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone. As of 2 p.m. EDT, the storm was centred about 241 kilometres east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, moving out to sea. It still had hurricane-force winds of 120 km/h.
Elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, things were slowly returning to normal. Much of Savannah, which had 43 centimetres of rain, was still without electricity. About 150 people stood in line for a grocery store to open like it was a Black Friday sale.
Debbie Berta said she waited more than an hour to get propane gas for her grill. She also wanted “bread, potatoes, eggs — and a piece of sanity.”
The fearsome storm then sideswiped hundreds of miles of the U.S. coastline from Florida through Georgia and the Carolinas, its eye staying far enough offshore that the damage in many places along the coast was relatively modest, consisting mostly of flooded streets, flattened trees and blown-down signs and awnings. A shift of just 20 or 30 miles could have meant widespread devastation nearer the ocean.
An estimated 2 million people in the Southeast were ordered to evacuate their homes as Matthew closed in.
In addition to the eight deaths in North Carolina, there were four in Florida, three in Georgia and two in South Carolina. Some were killed by falling trees, others by carbon monoxide fumes from a generator. One 66-year-old man near Columbia, South Carolina, died at a nursing facility when he got pinned under his electric wheelchair in water after the heavy rains.
Property data firm CoreLogic projected that insured losses on home and commercial properties would amount to $4 billion to $6 billion (U.S.), well below Hurricane Katrina’s $40 billion and Superstorm Sandy’s $20 billion.
The storm killed almost 1,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation, with that toll expected to rise as rescue workers reach previously inaccessible areas.
Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, last week levelled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, leaving victims pleading for help to arrive quickly.
"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.
The United Nations has launched a $120m flash appeal to cover Haiti's needs for the next three months.
Haiti's interim president has warned his country risks "real famine" following the "apocalyptic destruction" of Hurricane Matthew.
Jocelerme Privert said famine could take hold within three to four months if the situation was not managed properly.
It comes as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for a "massive response" to help the country.
After pummelling Haiti on October 4 as a monster Category 4 storm, packing winds of 230km/hr, Matthew slammed into the southeastern United States, where it killed at least 20 people.
Hundreds of people were rescued by boat and helicopter as floodwaters inundated towns in the state of North Carolina on Monday, and officials warned that life-threatening flooding from swollen rivers would continue for days.
The category-four storm is believed to have killed as many as 900 Haitians.
It has also wiped towns and villages off the map, destroying tens of thousands of homes, crops and food reserves.
Mr Privert said the loss was "amazing", saying food, water and medicine was immediately needed.
In Haiti, more than 300 schools have been damaged, while crops and food reserves were destroyed, Ban said.
UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien said that the hurricane had triggered the worst humanitarian crisis in the country since the 2010 earthquake.
Nearly 300,000 Haitians are in shelters across the country, and damage to roads and communications has hampered deliveries of supplies.
"I understand of course the frustration," Jean-Luc Poncelet, the country representative for the UN's World Health Organization, said after arriving at the airport outside Jeremie, one of the worst-hit cities.
"When you have no means of communication, no radio, no telephone, no roads and even a helicopter can't land - this is what explains the massive delay," he said.
The UN's World Food Programme tapped into food stocks previously set aside for schools to feed hundreds of desperate families, spokesman Alexis Masciarelli said.
"But the concern is if we don't take action now for the longer impact... three to four months when the foods stop coming we are going to have a real famine."
He described seeing "apocalyptic" destruction. "What I saw with my eyes yesterday will take a lot of effort to work on the reconstruction part of what has been destroyed," he said.
Matthew was the strongest hurricane to hit the region in a decade.
The UN has launched an emergency appeal for nearly $120m (£97m) in aid to cover the next three months.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr Ban said: ""Hundreds have died; at least 1.4 million people need assistance at this time.
"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map; crops and food reserves have been destroyed; at least 300 schools have been damaged,"
The UN humanitarian agency issued the appeal to help provide "life-saving assistance and protection" for 750,000 people in south-western Haiti over the next three months.
Officials were still struggling to reach the hardest-hit areas, the agency said, with communities in need of food, clean water and clothing.
There were growing fears that flooding could cause a cholera outbreak similar to that after the 2010 earthquake.
The waterborne disease reached the island via Nepalese UN troops, causing the deaths of nearly 10,000 people.
A treatment centre in the town of Jeremie has become overcrowded with not enough beds for patients, and some of them were being forced outside, reports said. Many of the cases involved children.
Other countries including France and the US have pledged to send aid. The Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal for $6.9m (£5.6m) and Unicef said it needed at least $5m to meet the immediate needs of 500,000 affected children.
Meanwhile, at least 21 have been killed by Matthew in the US, 10 of them in North Carolina, most of them swept away by flood waters.
"Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly," Governor Pat McCrory said.
There were also four deaths in Florida and three each in Georgia and South Carolina. One death was reported in Virginia. Nearly 1.2 million people were without power.
US army helicopters were unloading boxes of supplies from the US Agency for International Development to be stored by the UN in Jeremie before being taken to other parts of the south.
Honduras, which maintains a force of 60 troops in Haiti as part of a UN peacekeeping mission, was sending a planeload of aid on Tuesday, along with 50 military officers to help the victims, President Juan Orlando Hernandez said.
But getting aid to Haitians now reduced to drinking unclean water and living in roofless houses will be challenging.
On a road crossing the mountainous centre of the peninsula, some villagers blocked roads in an effort to stop aid convoys from passing through without delivering supplies.
Haiti is also grappling with a worsening cholera outbreak in the storm-hit areas.
Matthew came as Haitians were already struggling with the intestinal disease spread by contaminated food and water, with more than 500 new cases each week.
UN peacekeepers have been blamed for introducing the disease to Haiti, where it has killed 10,000 people since October 2010.While some towns and villages reported an apparent spike in infections since the storm, Poncelet said "the number of cases of cholera that we have confirmed are low".
He declined to give a number, but said there were "tens" of cases in one area of the peninsula.
While evaluation teams were working to get a precise picture of the health situation, medical supplies were being brought in, he said.
Mourad Wahba, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country, urged aid organisations to focus on delivering supplies to smaller rural communities, where many families survive on subsistence farming and have had all their crops washed away.
If aid is only delivered to cities such as Jeremie and Les Cayes, villagers will flock there for supplies and never leave, leading to overcrowding.
"We must think about developing a plan, to coordinate support and deliver it where it's most needed and not where it's easiest to access," Wahba said.
USA
When Hurricane Matthew dumped torrential rains on North Carolina, thousands of people found themselves suddenly trapped in homes and cars. Rescuers in Coast Guard helicopters plucked some of them from rooftops and used military vehicles to reach others, including a woman who held on to a tree for three hours after her car was overrun by flood waters.
In another dramatic rescue, a woman with her small child perched on the roof of her car had to be helped to safety as the waters rose around them, underscoring how quickly Matthew wreaked havoc 160 kilometres or more inland after sparing much of the Southeastern coast the catastrophic damage once feared.
The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 17 in the U.S. — nearly half of them in North Carolina. Gov. Pat McCrory said authorities were searching for five people and feared they may find more victims. The problems were far from over as all that rain — more than a foot in places — flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing days of major flooding in many of the same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
“Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly,” McCrory said.
More than a million people in South Carolina and North Carolina were without power, and at least four separate sections of Interstate 95 — the main artery linking the East Coast from Florida to Maine — were closed in North Carolina.
The ferocity of the rain caught people by surprise.
“The forecast said it wasn’t supposed to be anything major. Just rain and wind. Well, considering what happened weeks prior with the rain and combined with this, Mother Nature’s at its best,” said Lamont England, who was trying Sunday to get to his parents’ home in Fayetteville.
In Wilson County, rescuers were called when a 63-year-old woman didn’t make it home from work. They heard her cries for help while riding on top of a Humvee, and when they couldn’t get her with a rope, a National Guard soldier swam to her, staying until a rescue boat arrived, Emergency Management Director Gordon Deno said.
Even animals had to be saved. WRAL-TV showed a dog swimming around floodwaters Saturday. McCrory said he and his wife were riveted by the coverage and relieved to find out from the Coast Guard that the dog managed to get into a tree and rescue it.
Most of the dead were swept away by flood waters. The governor said there were rural areas that search and rescue teams hadn’t been able to make it to and places that flooded overnight.
“There could be some backroads where we had people swept away. I’m praying that is not going to be,” McCrory said.
The rainfall totals were staggering: Nearly 38 centimetres in Fayetteville and 20 centimetres in Raleigh. McCrory warned that cities along rivers in eastern North Carolina needed to be prepared for days of flooding. The Lumber River in Lumberton was 4 feet above its record level Sunday afternoon and was forecast to remain there for at least five days.
Shortly before daybreak, the hurricane was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone. As of 2 p.m. EDT, the storm was centred about 241 kilometres east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, moving out to sea. It still had hurricane-force winds of 120 km/h.
Elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, things were slowly returning to normal. Much of Savannah, which had 43 centimetres of rain, was still without electricity. About 150 people stood in line for a grocery store to open like it was a Black Friday sale.
Debbie Berta said she waited more than an hour to get propane gas for her grill. She also wanted “bread, potatoes, eggs — and a piece of sanity.”
The fearsome storm then sideswiped hundreds of miles of the U.S. coastline from Florida through Georgia and the Carolinas, its eye staying far enough offshore that the damage in many places along the coast was relatively modest, consisting mostly of flooded streets, flattened trees and blown-down signs and awnings. A shift of just 20 or 30 miles could have meant widespread devastation nearer the ocean.
An estimated 2 million people in the Southeast were ordered to evacuate their homes as Matthew closed in.
In addition to the eight deaths in North Carolina, there were four in Florida, three in Georgia and two in South Carolina. Some were killed by falling trees, others by carbon monoxide fumes from a generator. One 66-year-old man near Columbia, South Carolina, died at a nursing facility when he got pinned under his electric wheelchair in water after the heavy rains.
Property data firm CoreLogic projected that insured losses on home and commercial properties would amount to $4 billion to $6 billion (U.S.), well below Hurricane Katrina’s $40 billion and Superstorm Sandy’s $20 billion.
Saturday, 8 October 2016
BAHAMAS: Hurricane Matthew, Bahamas Assessing Damage
Bahamian authorities were on Friday assessing the damage done by Hurricane Matthew that tore through the chain of islands on Thursday.
There were no immediate reports of deaths and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) gave the all clear for the entire Commonwealth of The Bahamas early Friday.
The Ministry of Tourism said it had begun assessing hotel properties, beaches and other touristic sites throughout the Islands.
But it said that initial reports indicate that there was no major damage on the Family Islands.
“The country’s tourism product fared well during Hurricane Matthew with Grand Bahama, New Providence and Andros receiving the brunt of the storm. It is unclear at this time to what extent Grand Bahama was affected by Hurricane Matthew, “the Ministry of Tourism said in a statement.
Officials from the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) said they are conducting clean-up and assessment exercises at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) with a view to restoring operations as early as Saturday.
The Port of Nassau will open on Saturday and officials are currently conducting assessments and clean-up exercises. It is expected that at least two cruise ships will call on the Port on Saturday.
“I am so pleased that there are reports of only minor damage in our family islands and on New Providence. We are still awaiting official reports from Grand Bahama but are ready to respond to that island’s needs.
“We are cognizant that we are a blessed nation because we took quite a lashing from such a powerful category four hurricane and received no loss of life or widespread destruction,” said Joy Jibrilu, director general of tourism.
“We would like to extend our heartfelt thoughts and prayers for all the residents of The Bahamas who have been affected by the storm.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of Haiti where at last report there were over 400 people believed to be dead. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Caribbean family in recovery exercises,” she said, adding “we are also keeping the US state of Florida in our hearts as Hurricane Matthew moves through”.
The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism’s (BMOT) crisis management team, which said it is continuing to liaise with NEMA, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Nassau Airport Development Company, the Port Authority and other relevant authorities, is urging industry partners advising them to allow NEMA, the appropriate government agency, to conduct the initial damage and needs assessment in all the affected areas.
But Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said he was disappointed that thieves used the storm as an opportunity to carry out criminal activities.
“While most of the people of Fox Hill worked together during the storm, the Sandilands Primary School was broken into and all its computers from its computer lab were stolen and the principal’s office was ransacked on the day the hurricane struck by persons unknown.
“This is reprehensible and disgusting. How can someone be so morally bankrupt as to use a storm to rob little children of a chance at a decent future? I ask the community to keep their eyes and ears open to find these thieves and report them to the police who are investigating,” Mitchell said
The Bahamas Telecommunication Company (BTC) Friday said it was providing all customers with a five dollar mobile credit “to help families stay in contact with their loved-ones following the storm".
The company said that it has managed to maintain above average service levels through-out the storm and that restoration efforts have already started in the South East Islands and other areas
“In the areas that were most impacted, namely, New Providence and Grand Bahama, the resident BTC Teams were dispatched immediately following the “all clear” to conduct assessments and restorations. Basic communications are in place in most of the Family Islands.
“Additionally, BTC has already identified teams for assessments and restoration in the impacted islands and with the opening of the airports on Saturday, October 8, 2016, those teams will travel to conduct assessments and complete repairs. “
The Bahamas Power and Light Company Limited (BPL) said it has started restoring power to customers, noting that is action plan for restoration is a step down approach impacting the largest amount of customers first and continuing on to smaller groupings and then individual customers.
“Given the extent of the damage restoration could, for some, take several days or even longer. There are numerous issues that may impact the restoration process including; severe flooding on several parts of the island.
“We fully understand how critical power is in helping you recover from such a destructive storm; however, while we will work hard to get power restored to all communities, we will do so safely.
“We cannot and will not jeopardise the safety of our teams or customers to expedite this process. We hope customers can appreciate the extremity of this situation and will work along with us to help all communities and the entire country bounce back after this devastating storm,” the BBL added.
There were no immediate reports of deaths and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) gave the all clear for the entire Commonwealth of The Bahamas early Friday.
The Ministry of Tourism said it had begun assessing hotel properties, beaches and other touristic sites throughout the Islands.
But it said that initial reports indicate that there was no major damage on the Family Islands.
“The country’s tourism product fared well during Hurricane Matthew with Grand Bahama, New Providence and Andros receiving the brunt of the storm. It is unclear at this time to what extent Grand Bahama was affected by Hurricane Matthew, “the Ministry of Tourism said in a statement.
Officials from the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) said they are conducting clean-up and assessment exercises at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) with a view to restoring operations as early as Saturday.
The Port of Nassau will open on Saturday and officials are currently conducting assessments and clean-up exercises. It is expected that at least two cruise ships will call on the Port on Saturday.
“I am so pleased that there are reports of only minor damage in our family islands and on New Providence. We are still awaiting official reports from Grand Bahama but are ready to respond to that island’s needs.
“We are cognizant that we are a blessed nation because we took quite a lashing from such a powerful category four hurricane and received no loss of life or widespread destruction,” said Joy Jibrilu, director general of tourism.
“We would like to extend our heartfelt thoughts and prayers for all the residents of The Bahamas who have been affected by the storm.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of Haiti where at last report there were over 400 people believed to be dead. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Caribbean family in recovery exercises,” she said, adding “we are also keeping the US state of Florida in our hearts as Hurricane Matthew moves through”.
The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism’s (BMOT) crisis management team, which said it is continuing to liaise with NEMA, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Nassau Airport Development Company, the Port Authority and other relevant authorities, is urging industry partners advising them to allow NEMA, the appropriate government agency, to conduct the initial damage and needs assessment in all the affected areas.
But Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said he was disappointed that thieves used the storm as an opportunity to carry out criminal activities.
“While most of the people of Fox Hill worked together during the storm, the Sandilands Primary School was broken into and all its computers from its computer lab were stolen and the principal’s office was ransacked on the day the hurricane struck by persons unknown.
“This is reprehensible and disgusting. How can someone be so morally bankrupt as to use a storm to rob little children of a chance at a decent future? I ask the community to keep their eyes and ears open to find these thieves and report them to the police who are investigating,” Mitchell said
The Bahamas Telecommunication Company (BTC) Friday said it was providing all customers with a five dollar mobile credit “to help families stay in contact with their loved-ones following the storm".
The company said that it has managed to maintain above average service levels through-out the storm and that restoration efforts have already started in the South East Islands and other areas
“In the areas that were most impacted, namely, New Providence and Grand Bahama, the resident BTC Teams were dispatched immediately following the “all clear” to conduct assessments and restorations. Basic communications are in place in most of the Family Islands.
“Additionally, BTC has already identified teams for assessments and restoration in the impacted islands and with the opening of the airports on Saturday, October 8, 2016, those teams will travel to conduct assessments and complete repairs. “
The Bahamas Power and Light Company Limited (BPL) said it has started restoring power to customers, noting that is action plan for restoration is a step down approach impacting the largest amount of customers first and continuing on to smaller groupings and then individual customers.
“Given the extent of the damage restoration could, for some, take several days or even longer. There are numerous issues that may impact the restoration process including; severe flooding on several parts of the island.
“We fully understand how critical power is in helping you recover from such a destructive storm; however, while we will work hard to get power restored to all communities, we will do so safely.
“We cannot and will not jeopardise the safety of our teams or customers to expedite this process. We hope customers can appreciate the extremity of this situation and will work along with us to help all communities and the entire country bounce back after this devastating storm,” the BBL added.
Thursday, 6 October 2016
JAMAICA: Expressing Gratitude And Appreciation For Hurricane Response
Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett is expressing gratitude and appreciation to local tourism partners for their role in the sector’s emergency planning and response efforts during the period when Hurricane Matthew posed a threat to Jamaica.
According to a news release from the ministry, Bartlett is thankful that the island was spared the brunt of Matthew, which never made landfall in Jamaica, but passed offshore the island. He singled out the ministry’s Tourism Emergency Operations Centre (TEOC), which provided information to tourism stakeholders around the clock.
The ministry said it activated the TEOC at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston to coordinate emergency services for the local tourism sector. Tourism entities across the island also took precautionary measures to safeguard life and property.
“I am truly grateful to the staff and volunteers who devoted many hours of their time to ensure that the industry and our visitors were kept safe and fully informed about the impending weather system. Their support provided valuable reassurance to the tourism community. I also wish to thank all our tourism partners for the important role they played, including the management and staff of the Jamaica Pegasus for accommodating our Tourism Emergency Operations Centre,” Bartlett said.
“We have a well-developed tourism disaster preparedness and emergency management infrastructure that can handle these types of threats. I am extremely pleased that there was no damage to the island’s tourism sector and that our tourism entities such as our resorts and attractions are operating as they normally would,” Minister Bartlett pointed out.
He emphasised that “Jamaica is open for business and I encourage persons to continue to visit our island and experience a unique and memorable vacation that only Jamaica can provide”.
In the meantime, Bartlett also urged Jamaicans to keep the people of Haiti, Cuba and other countries that have been or that are likely to be impacted by Hurricane Matthew in their prayers.
According to a news release from the ministry, Bartlett is thankful that the island was spared the brunt of Matthew, which never made landfall in Jamaica, but passed offshore the island. He singled out the ministry’s Tourism Emergency Operations Centre (TEOC), which provided information to tourism stakeholders around the clock.
The ministry said it activated the TEOC at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston to coordinate emergency services for the local tourism sector. Tourism entities across the island also took precautionary measures to safeguard life and property.
“I am truly grateful to the staff and volunteers who devoted many hours of their time to ensure that the industry and our visitors were kept safe and fully informed about the impending weather system. Their support provided valuable reassurance to the tourism community. I also wish to thank all our tourism partners for the important role they played, including the management and staff of the Jamaica Pegasus for accommodating our Tourism Emergency Operations Centre,” Bartlett said.
“We have a well-developed tourism disaster preparedness and emergency management infrastructure that can handle these types of threats. I am extremely pleased that there was no damage to the island’s tourism sector and that our tourism entities such as our resorts and attractions are operating as they normally would,” Minister Bartlett pointed out.
He emphasised that “Jamaica is open for business and I encourage persons to continue to visit our island and experience a unique and memorable vacation that only Jamaica can provide”.
In the meantime, Bartlett also urged Jamaicans to keep the people of Haiti, Cuba and other countries that have been or that are likely to be impacted by Hurricane Matthew in their prayers.
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