Red Cross St. Maarten will conduct a house-to-house survey to learn what residents need to improve job opportunities and better prepare for calamities (see related story). The latter is certainly not untimely, with the start of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season just two months away.
Their intention is to gauge what people could use, to guide the next phase of the relief organisation’s Hurricane Irma Recovery Mission. One can hardly deny there is still much to be done before the country may consider itself resilient enough to natural disasters of that magnitude.
And while the island was thankfully spared any major tropical systems last year, the reality is that the local area has been proven quite susceptible to them in recent history. This is also why the post-Irma goal was not just to rebuild, but to build back better.
Whether or to what extent this has been accomplished up to now is for everyone to decide on their own, but the more that can be done to achieve such, the better. Once the most urgent socioeconomic and structural damage has been addressed, this is an essential aspect to keep in mind for the near future.
The evacuation drill at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) reported on in today’s paper is also important in this regard. Although not geared towards weather-related problems, being well-trained in dealing with any type of emergency, especially one that requires vacating the facility, is crucial for a major gateway that handles hundreds of thousands of passengers on an annual basis.
These activities show that it’s not just about SXM Strong after the devastation, but also moving forward. Keep getting ready for the next “big one” while hoping it never comes, because failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
