News
Fury of Fiona leaves Turks and Caicos virtually unscathed
By Deandrea Hamilton & Dana Malcolm
Editorial Staff
#TurksandCaicos, September 30, 2022 – The Turks and Caicos breathed a heavy sigh of relief, recognizing with the passage of major category three Hurricane Fiona, the archipelago had been miraculously spared serious damage. Hurricane Fiona, which is blamed for 27 deaths across the Atlantic Basin, devastated larger nations from September 16-24 to the tune of $12 Billion.
Fiona wreaked havoc on Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda and Canada leaving millions without electricity and dozens homeless. There was intense flooding in Puerto Rico and the entire island lost power, landslides and flooding damaged homes in the DR and whole seaside homes washed out to sea in Canada where
Fiona lashed five Atlantic provinces.
In spite of being hit by the hurricane at category three strength, The Turks and Caicos has only minimal damage to report, according to Premier Washington Misick.
“Early assessment indicates that well hit by a category three hurricane the Turks and Caicos suffered level-one damage which is a credit to the state of our preparedness and the credibility of our infrastructure.”
Misick also credited the country’s resilience to the careful planning of the islands emergency response and the flawless execution by Deputy Governor Anya Williams and her team as well as the upgraded infrastructure installed post Irma and Maria
While the Turks and Caicos is still recovering, according to Governor Nigel Dakin the crisis period has in the rear view mirror of the islands now.
Once the all-clear was given, the main airport, the Providenciales International Airport (PLS) was reopened to air travel. A week after the storm, all airports and ferries were operational again. Digital connection was mostly restored as was electricity.
At the start of this week, Governor Dakin said information shared in recovery meetings exposed the bruises caused by Hurricane Fiona included severe damaged to the one mile causeway linking North and Middle Caicos.
Poles were also laid flat in the hurricane’s 150mph winds.
“Ninety-five of customers across the country now have electricity after Hurricane Fiona,” said FortisTCI, the nation’s electricity provider in its fifth report on restoration work.
At that time, Middle Caicos stood at 55 percent with power back on, once the causeway was cleared of debris. Bambarra and Lorimers on the island, were among the last to get electricity. FortisTCI reported on Friday September 30, both settlements were reconnected.
“At 11:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 29, Middle Caicos now has 96 percent of customers restored. The majority of customers in Bambarra and Lorimers now have electricity. Only a small pocket of customers were pending restoration at the time. The focus has been to energize both settlements via Conch Bar’s electricity generation unit, while crews rebuild damaged sections of the main transmission and distribution network.”
The Governor also updated on the cruise ship industry. He explained Carnival Cruises, after addressing the damage, set a potential opening date for October 4th, pushed back from Thursday September 29 as was listed on the Grand Turk Cruise Centre website.
Students in Grand Turk and the sister islands were able to start attending school by Monday September 26th a week after Fiona and the resulting outages.
Ten days after the storm, FortisTCI has restored connectivity to 99.3 percent of customers across the country. Grand Turk residents were the hardest hit and as of Thursday night, some 95 percent are back online.
The electricity restoration now speeds up reconnections and repairs with FlowTCI, on September 28 the telecoms company gave an update on Grand Turk and North Caicos.
“Fixed broadband for all Flow business customers has been successfully restored. A few customers’ services remain impacted due to a lack of commercial power,” said Flow about Grand Turk, for North Caicos, “The realignment of link between our Minorca Hill and Stubbs Road has been successfully completed. Teams were deployed in North
Caicos today (September 28) to focus on restoring fibre connectivity to residential customers and bringing First Caribbean Bank ABM services back online.”
Digicel, less than 48 hours after the hurricane, reported that all of its networks were running, hampered only by customers who were waiting on electricity restoration. Digicel, following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 decided to migrate to an underground network, which went unaffected in the passage of recent Hurricane Fiona.
Humanitarian support was also immediately available to the Turks and Caicos Islands. With both the Governor and Premier out of the country, due to the State Funeral and National Security meetings in the United Kingdom, it was handy having the TCI Regiment and UK soldiers on hand to led military-styled assistance.
Co-chairs of the National Emergency Operations Center, Anya Williams (acting) Governor and E. Jay Saunders, (acting) Premier were part an aerial reconnaissance mission thanks to the HMS Medway; its helicopter allowed a birds eye view of the damage done by the storm.
The intel gain guided clean-up and allowed the leaders to connect with islanders who faced the most ferocious part of the storm, this included Salt Cay.
Despite the fairly swift recovery Governor Nigel Dakin reminds that the season is not yet over and residents should prepare for a potential second encounter, praying for the best while expecting the worst.
Since then, Hurricanes Gaston, Hermine and Ian have formed. Ian, which grew to near category five strength over the state of Florida, is now blamed for 21 deaths, has left 2.5 million in the dark and as the surge waters subside, US President Joe Biden pledged full support to rebuild.
Caribbean News
Agriculture Ministry Providing Two Water Trucks to Serve St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine
#Kingston, Jamaica, April 24, 2024 – The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining is to unveil two more water trucks this week, which will be used to service communities in St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine.
Portfolio Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, made the disclosure during Wednesday’s (April 24) post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.
He also informed that of the $90 million earmarked to support farmers being impacted by the current drought, the Ministry will be
providing additional support for storage and drip-irrigation systems.
“So, we have targeted about 600 water tanks and about 400 12-millimetre drip irrigation hoses, and that distribution has already started. Additionally, we have earmarked about $8 million to really help with our livestock farmers,” Mr. Green said.
“We know the difficulty that you’re facing now in this time; [it’s] very hard to get the right nutritional support for your animals. As such, we will be providing some hay, and we will [also] provide some trucking of water to you. Again, our livestock farmers, if you are in need, please contact the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and let us see how we can help in these times,” he further stated.
Mr. Green also encouraged farmers to download the RADA App, so that the Agency can “help guide you, not only in relation to what is happening on the rainfall side, but also in relation to your integrated pest management”.
“We do see some increases of certain types of pests during this time, and it’s important that our farmers are paying attention to that. It’s also important that you’re taking drought management seriously [by undertaking] soil mulching, looking at planting drought-tolerant crops, timely harvesting, implementing land husbandry treatments and contour ditches,” he stated.
Contact: Latonya Linton
Release: JIS
Photo Caption: Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, speaking during Wednesday’s (April 24) post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.
Donald De La Haye Photo
Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TurksandCaicos, April 19, 2024 – In an attempt to move to 24-hour-a-day operations Turks and Caicos Islands Airports Authority (TCIAA) is steadily recruiting Air Traffic Controllers to work at the Providenciales/Howard Hamilton International Airport, according to Godfrey Smith, TCIAA CEO, reporting to the Appropriations Committee.
Speaking on April 8th Smith said a cabinet paper would be sent soon requesting six more Air Traffic Controllers to make round the clock operation at the Provo International possible and to open the airport in Grand Turk till 12 a.m.
Currently, 17 posts are filled and seven are vacant.
Smith was candid with his responses to recent industrial action from ATCs which led to resignations and firings.
“What we have to do is find systems to mitigate such actions and that has to start with filling these jobs, putting people in that want to
work and doing right by people – and we always try to do right by our staff. Persons may not think that we are but we always do – we ain’t pick no fight,” he said in the meetings held at the NJS Francis building ahead of the National Budget Communication.
Smith indicated that recruitment was an issue across the board, ‘we need to find ways to recruit a little bit better’ he told the committee. Also in need of a push was capital spending or projects according to the CEO, who said the agency had ‘not been very good’ at meeting that mark but insisted they had recognized the issue and could do better.
A very important key performance indicator drawn up by the TCIAA is increasing passenger satisfaction at the Howard Hamilton International Airport. For the TCIAA part of this means a 30 percent increase in seating by Q2 of this year.
When queried on if they could even handle this increase the CEO said,
“The fact of the matter is we already have the capacity there. What we need is to make the service a bit better.”
Staff shortages have become such a frustrating issue that the TCIAA is instituting a scholarship program created by Authority Chairman, Selvyn Hawkins
“What the board wants to do is basically allocate $25,000 annually for a scholarship and they’ve approved it already.”
This process would cover tuition and all other costs for one student.
The student would return as a summer intern and other breaks to work at the TCIAA and upon graduation, assume a role at the company.
“We identify a particular skill we need, we go after it and we build capacity that is in a nutshell the nexus of the program,” Smith said.
The Turks and Caicos Islands Airports Authority (TCIAA) is allocated $49 million this financial year; over $20 million goes to salaries.
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