Re­gion­al gov­ern­ments and or­gan­i­sa­tions con­tin­ue to mo­bilise to fast-track their re­cov­ery fol­low­ing the dam­age caused by Hur­ri­cane Beryl as she bar­reled through the Caribbean from To­ba­go to the Cay­man Is­lands.

Yes­ter­day, the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) de­ployed its Rapid Needs As­sess­ment Team (RNAT) to Union Is­land to de­tail the im­pacts of the Beryl.

Led by the agency’s Pro­gramme Of­fi­cer for Pre­pared­ness and Re­sponse, Rasheed Pe­ter, the team in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Bar­ba­dos of­fice of the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion (FAO), the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO), and jour­nal­ists from the Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. The Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) has al­so sent a team to St Vin­cent and Grena­da to con­duct im­pact as­sess­ments. The re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment bank’s Re­gion­al Re­sponse Mech­a­nism (RRM) has been ac­ti­vat­ed and has de­liv­ered per­son­nel, equip­ment, and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the more se­vere­ly af­fect­ed coun­tries.

That ac­tion, how­ev­er, is be­ing led by CDE­MA, while the CDB’s per­son­nel’s pri­or­i­ty is the psy­cho-so­cial as­pect of the re­cov­ery process, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to stake­hold­er en­gage­ment with gov­ern­ment, non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions, and af­fect­ed house­holds.

They will al­so pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to vul­ner­a­ble groups, in­clud­ing chil­dren, the el­der­ly, and the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled. How­ev­er, a CDB spe­cial­ist has been de­ployed to as­sist with re­cov­ery ef­forts in the wa­ter sec­tor. The Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies is al­so di­rect­ing the group’s re­cov­ery re­sponse and has ad­vised a com­mit­ment to pro­vide un­wa­ver­ing sup­port to the ac­tive restora­tion of the af­fect­ed coun­try.

In a state­ment to staff, An­tho­ny N Sab­ga II said, “ANSA McAL has al­ways been deeply com­mit­ted to the com­mu­ni­ties we serve. With ded­i­cat­ed teams across the re­gion, we ac­tive­ly sup­port our col­leagues and their fam­i­lies dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time. Fur­ther­more, we are col­lab­o­rat­ing with re­gion­al min­istries and as­so­ci­a­tions to mo­bilise re­lief ef­forts, en­sur­ing that es­sen­tial sup­plies and re­sources reach those in need prompt­ly.”

Ju­ly 4 is CAari­com Day, and this year the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brates the 51st an­niver­sary of the sign­ing of the Orig­i­nal Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. But Hur­ri­cane Beryl has taint­ed those cel­e­bra­tions, with Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Car­la Bar­nett say­ing via state­ment, “This is a fright­en­ing start to what is fore­cast to be a very ac­tive hur­ri­cane sea­son. The dev­as­ta­tion to our re­gion has brought sad­ness to every­one, and I ex­tend deep­est sym­pa­thies to those who lost fam­i­ly mem­bers, liveli­hoods, and prop­er­ty.”

But re­solv­ing that uni­ty, specif­i­cal­ly re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, is the on­ly way to face the chal­lenge of re­cov­ery in the wake of Beryl.