标签： Barbados

In the College Land neighborhood of St John, Barbados, decades of unresolved historical injustice have erupted into public calls for urgent change, as local residents and tenant descendants push for a seat at the table shaping an $18 million initiative meant to redress the wrongs of the island’s colonial plantation era. The Codrington Estate, once a sprawling sugar operation worked by thousands of enslaved African people, is at the center of a growing national conversation about reparative justice, pitting long-simmering community demands against the incremental 15-year framework laid out by the project’s steward, the Codrington Trust.

As Barbados ramps up its annual hurricane preparedness initiatives, emergency management authorities are issuing a urgent call to vulnerable communities across the island: register with the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) before a storm makes landfall. This proactive step, officials emphasize, is critical to ensuring at-risk residents receive life-saving assistance when severe weather strikes.

The preparedness push sees District Emergency Organisations (DEOs) – 30 volunteer-led groups spread across every constituency on the island – conducting door-to-door community hazard assessments, while the DEM works to expand and update its centralized database of vulnerable residents. Selwyn Brooks, a consultant with the DEM, explained that the registration process is simple: at-risk individuals only need to contact the department with their name, address and contact details, and a team will be dispatched to evaluate their situation and plan targeted emergency responses.

The definition of vulnerable residents extends far beyond those with physical disabilities, visual or hearing impairments, mobility challenges, dementia, or those requiring regular dialysis. Brooks stressed that the category also includes any person living alone without a pre-existing support network to rely on during an emergency. Even for vulnerable residents who do have family or community support, officials still encourage registration to ensure formal emergency plans can be put in place, with extra priority allocated to those without existing support systems.

Brooks noted that maintaining an accurate count of vulnerable people across Barbados is an ongoing, fluid process, rather than a one-time task. “Vulnerability comes and goes, so it’s not static,” he explained, adding that many residents only choose to identify themselves as at-risk after a storm has already arrived, which leaves little time for officials to prepare tailored assistance. That is why authorities are urging all eligible people to come forward voluntarily, well in advance of any hurricane threat.

As part of community assessments, the DEM also collects reports of hazardous trees that threaten the homes of vulnerable residents. Depending on the size and complexity of the tree removal or trimming work, it is either handled directly by local DEOs or referred to the Ministry of Public Works’ specialized tree trimming department for larger jobs requiring heavy machinery. Brooks acknowledged that DEOs operate with varying capacities, as all rely on volunteer labor, but added that gaps are quickly filled by coordinating with other government emergency response agencies when needed.

Home Affairs Minister Gregory Nicholls echoed the appeal, urging vulnerable residents who have not yet been added to the database to reach out to their local DEO directly. For those unsure of their local DEO leadership or contact information, Nicholls said the DEM will connect residents to the right representatives.

Identifying and supporting vulnerable residents is a core pillar of the Barbados government’s annual emergency planning, Nicholls explained. The government coordinates with the Ministry of People Empowerment and the Social Empowerment Agency, which maintain regular contact with at-risk communities, to consolidate and update the central vulnerable persons database.

Nicholls also called on all residents to report any community hazards, including overhanging trees that could block roads or damage property during a storm, to the DEM. The minister highlighted his own St. Thomas constituency as a model for the work, where the local DEO is already compiling a list of hazardous overhanging trees to complete trimming and removal work ahead of hurricane season. “We’re compiling that list so we can be able to get a lot of that work done early,” he said.

As the Atlantic hurricane season enters its second month, a leading Barbados-based homeless advocacy organization is renewing urgent calls for national emergency powers to safeguard unhoused people when major storms hit. The Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEH) is pushing authorities to adopt a state of emergency framework modeled on COVID-19 pandemic protocols, which would allow officials to move vulnerable homeless people — including those living with mental illness and substance use disorders — into pre-approved safe shelters before a storm makes landfall.

Kemar Saffrey, head of the alliance, outlined a key barrier to current safety efforts: many unhoused people fail to recognize the immediate threat of an oncoming hurricane, and often delay seeking shelter until it is too late to evacuate dangerous locations. Compounding this risk, Saffrey noted, is a widespread cultural complacency among many Barbadians who have never experienced a direct, devastating hurricane strike. This attitude leads many unhoused people to gamble with their safety, choosing to wait out the storm in informal, unsafe encampments rather than move to designated shelters.

“Many of our clients take unnecessary risks,” Saffrey explained. “Not only are they unhoused, but there is a widespread mindset that because we haven’t been hit hard by a hurricane before, we can just ride it out. By the time they realize the storm is coming for real, it’s often too late to get to safety.”

Under the proposal Saffrey put forward, the same emergency powers the government deployed to manage public health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic would be extended to protect homeless and other vulnerable street populations ahead of hurricanes. The policy would allow officials to place at-risk people in appropriate facilities, ranging from the national psychiatric hospital to addiction treatment institutions, while coordinating with street outreach and feeding organizations to support unhoused people through the storm. Once the all-clear is issued after the event, teams can then work on long-term support for each person, with the priority first being to guarantee their immediate safety through the storm.

Beyond the emergency policy call, BAEH is also pushing for closer cross-organizational collaboration among all NGOs and agencies that provide support to unhoused communities. Saffrey said the group hopes to form a dedicated coordinating committee that can share resources, data, and logistics across organizations to streamline preparedness efforts. While BAEH has already gained more inclusion in national disaster preparedness planning and maintains an ongoing partnership with the national Department of Emergency Management, Saffrey said the group still seeks a seat at the table for more key planning meetings, allowing it to contribute on-the-ground expertise about the needs of the most vulnerable unhoused populations.

Currently, BAEH’s own Spry Street shelter is fully prepared for hurricane season, with enough space, supplies, and structural integrity to accommodate up to 130 people. Saffrey confirmed that the shelter has sufficient stockpiles of food, meets all structural safety standards, and is ready to receive guests at a moment’s notice. While the facility is primarily designated for homeless people, Saffrey pledged that any person fleeing an unsafe home during a storm will not be turned away. He also reminded all residents living in substandard or structurally unsound homes to follow official guidance from the Department of Emergency Management and move to public shelters when they are activated ahead of a storm.

As Barbados enters the busiest period of the Atlantic hurricane season and gears up for its iconic annual Grand Kadooment celebration, government work crews have sharply intensified island-wide drain clearance and roadside cleanup initiatives to cut flood risks and spruce up major thoroughfares ahead of the events.

On Thursday, reporters from Barbados TODAY documented crews along the busy Mighty Grynner Highway extracting accumulated waste including plastic bags, food containers, discarded wood and other forms of debris that had clogged drainage systems along the route. A second adjacent team was simultaneously carrying out roadside beautification work to tidy up public spaces near the highway.

Justin Bynoe, team leader with the Barbados Drainage Division, explained that the current push is part of a sustained islandwide program designed to clear blocked drainage infrastructure and guarantee unobstructed water flow during periods of intense rainfall, which are common during the Caribbean hurricane season. “That’s the core purpose of this work: to clear debris out of drains and make sure the entire water course runs properly,” Bynoe stated in an interview on site.

While the work also delivers a cosmetic upgrade to roadways ahead of Crop Over festival’s climax event Grand Kadooment, Bynoe emphasized that flood prevention remains the overriding priority of the initiative. “Even though we want the island to look neat and welcoming for Kadooment, our main goal is removing blockages. Drains across the country have accumulated all kinds of trash – plastic bags, disposable cups, wooden crates, scrap wood and all sorts of other items that restrict water flow. Clearing these out means we won’t see widespread flooding on roads when heavy rain hits, especially with hurricane season upon us,” he added.

Multiple coordinated work crews have been deployed simultaneously across a wide range of communities, including Two Mile Hill, Bawdens, Belleplaine, Barclays Hill, Spring Garden and multiple districts in Christ Church to cover as much ground as possible. According to Bynoe, two teams were assigned just to the Mighty Grynner Highway corridor on Thursday, each staffed with five full-time workers to complete the clearance work efficiently.

Minister of Home Affairs Gregory Nicholls confirmed that the country’s national hurricane preparedness program is advancing on schedule, with drainage clearance marked as a core activity that is being accelerated ahead of the season’s peak. “From my position chairing the Emergency Management Advisory Council, I’ve received consistent updates that the committees responsible for road clearance and port clearing are on track with their planned work, and there have been no major setbacks reported,” Nicholls said. “I can see firsthand that work is progressing well, and we are now ramping up these operations even more. We can see drains being cleared across the island, and all routine preparedness work is proceeding as planned.”

Nicholls also appealed to the general public to actively contribute to the effort by contacting the Department of Emergency Management to report any blocked drains or areas that require maintenance attention, so crews can be dispatched to resolve issues before they lead to flooding. “If community members have areas of concern that need clearing, they just need to reach out to the emergency management department, and we will coordinate to get those situations addressed,” the minister added.

For Bynoe, who has been part of the drainage program for an extended period, the work carries personal as well as public value. “Honestly, I’ve been doing this for years, and I genuinely enjoy it,” he said. “It’s a really important program because it helps the whole of Barbados. That’s the plain truth.”