Director of the Department of Disaster Management (DDM), Sharlene S. Dabreo defended that the relief food items were evenly distributed and everyone got a fair opportunity to assess them. Photo: VINO

Mrs Judith Vanterpool, Vice President of One Mart Superstore and Sharlene S. Dabreo, Director of the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) opening a 20-foot container donated by One Mart Superstore which was filled with relief food items on November 22, 2017 at the Festival Grounds in Road Town. Photo: VINO

This is according to Sharlene S. Dabreo, Director of the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) at a presentation ceremony in which DDM received relief food items from One Mart Superstore on Wednesday, November 22, 2017 at the Festival Grounds in Road Town.

This came amid the allegations that DDM was not evenly distributing the relief items throughout the territory and that relief items were being unnecessarily held up.

However, Ms Dabreo defended that every district received relief items, adding that she is satisfied that it was distributed appropriately.

She emphasised, "The people of the BVI had a need and we provided and we address that need very, very quickly with what was available. To this date we are satisfied that the people who need to have the relief, received the relief," while admitting that getting the containers in the territory was very complicated.

She further explained that her distribution team has provided every "social entity and social mechanism" for persons to receive relief items.

"Family Support Network (FSN), Red Cross, churches, social development all have supplies and they will continue to give people assistance. If people need to have that and they are desperately in need of food and water, they can continue to go to those social services entities. We have done everything that we can," expressed Ms Dabreo.

The Director of DDM told media houses that the containers on the Festival Grounds are empty and they are being returned, noting that the donation from One Mart Superstore is the only full container on the field.

"Most of the supplies coming in are equipment, medical supplies and materials. This may be the last and we are really into that period of time that you don’t expect us to continue to be giving any significant distribution of food," while adding that the container from One Mart was brought in at this time because of transportation and it was only able to be cleared at the port.

3,000 individuals surveyed to determine need of communities

Ms Dabreo revealed that 3,000 persons were surveyed to ensure an appropriate sample size was given for an assessment to determine the needs of the communities.

Ms Dabreo said, "We have done some specific surveying on some of the communities and we know that the Huntums Ghut area has been significantly affected. We did quite a bit of work in that area in the initial stages and we worked with the district representative to make sure that we can push more food into that area while there are pockets of Road Town that need some assistance."

Responding to a question from the media, the Director of DDM stated that it is very difficult to get full statistics but noted that her department took the distribution and divided it by district number per district to ensure that everyone got assistance.

"We have been working with a number of non-governmental organisations to ensure that people get the door to door support. In Jost van Dyke that was something that was necessary for us to move the supplies too homes and the individuals, so we worked with the representative there to do that and there are other areas on Tortola that people need that level of assistance," explained Ms Dadreo.