Averting a second killer wave: The environmental impact of hurricanes
By UN Humanitarian
Unfathomable devastation has become the signature of powerful storms such as Hurricane Dorian, which tore through the Abaco and Grand Bahama islands of the Bahamas in early September.
As far as the eye can see, lush forests seem to have been scorched, homes razed to the ground, roads and bridges disintegrated into tar confetti. The few surviving buildings serve to provide more depth to the hair-raising vision of apocalypse.
Less visible yet potentially as harmful as strewed debris and sea surge are hazardous materials. Damaged industrial complexes, power plants, fuel and chemicals storage facilities, petrol stations and electrical grids can potentially leak toxic material in the wake of the storm – a second killer wave threatening life and the environment. Therefore, identifying possible hazardous sites, assessing damage and drawing a map of no-go zones is as vital as bringing first aid to survivors.
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Dorian’s landfall, experts from the Bahamian Ministry of Environment, foreign military contingents and the UN Joint Environmental Unit – deployed as part of the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams – worked tirelessly alongside traditional humanitarian first responders and Search and Rescue teams in a shared race against the clock. The latter to find survivors and bring life-saving aid to affected people; the former to contain any hazardous material that could compound the disaster.
Environment damage experts establish three types of buffer zones around compromised sites, like concentric circles: a human health risk core, a water contamination area and a larger hazardous soil pollution circle. Combined, these buffer zones around hazardous sites cover a significant portion of the land mass of the affected Bahamian islands, which recovery planners should incorporate in their forward-leaning strategies.
In Abaco’s secondary power station in Marsh Harbour, a 140,000-gallon fuel storage tank showed signs of leakage. Thousands of gallons were pouring into the purpose-built, open-air containment area around the tank. Parts of the plant perimeter were already contaminated. The stench of diesel mixed with soil and debris is overpowering. Winds and rain threatened to spread large quantities of the leaked fuel into parts of the town and a neighbouring national park.
In a three-way effort, the environmental expert with the UNDAC team, the private operator of the plant as well as engineers and troops from the European Combined Task Force (comprising Dutch, French and German contingents) devised an impromptu strategy to pump the leaked fuel into a safe tank.
It may not sound like a big deal, but the prevailing chaos in the aftermath of a disaster renders any seemingly simple task, such as pumping fuel, into a challenge. Finding specialized and safety equipment, powering the pump when electricity is down or securing scarce manpower is easier said than done.
The ability to gather and share information and mobilize partners quickly is key to succeeding. What better way to connect all those dots than being an integral part of the temporary relief coordination structure?
That’s the added value of the environmental experts deployed in UNDAC teams. In Abaco, it translated into averting a disaster within the disaster.
As seas get warmer, climate change brings more frequent and powerful cyclones across the world. The threat of catastrophic environmental damage, with both short- and long-term deadly effects on human health, will inevitably exacerbate the devastation unleashed by these large-scale storms.
Capacity to provide post-impact early detection and containment services must grow accordingly. For the moment, the only prevention available the world over as we heard during the United Nations Climate Summit is in the adoption of policies that reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, to gradually become carbon neutral and reverse climate change altogether.