Nearly 1 000 tonnes of relief airlifted from Barbados to Jamaica

Nearly 1 000 metric tonnes of emergency relief supplies were dispatched from Barbados to Jamaica last year through the Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub based here, as regional and international agencies mobilised in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa’s devastation, a United Nations food relief agency official has told Barbados TODAY exclusively.

Speaking on the sidelines of an emergency logistics coordination simulation exercise at the Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub, Brian Bogart, Representative and Country Director for the World Food Programme’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office, said the organisation had mobilised a significant amount of supplies in response to the powerful hurricane.

“In response to Hurricane Melissa, we delivered 982 metric tonnes, equivalent to 55 shipping containers of relief supplies, to Jamaica,” Bogart said. “Those supplies were from a range of United Nations agencies, NGO partners, and governments, covering items like shelter, water and sanitation supplies, food, energy, lighting, and logistics assets that were required to immediately transition from early warning to response within days of impact.”

Hurricane Melissa, considered the most destructive storm ever to strike Jamaica, left widespread damage across the island and cut off several communities when the Category 5 cyclone swept over the island on 28 October.

“Jamaica obviously was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Melissa. It was the most powerful hurricane ever to impact Jamaica and one of the strongest storms on record globally,” the WFP official said. “The impacts were felt by people across the south coast of Jamaica all the way up to the north in Montego Bay, devastating impacts on housing, on livelihoods, and people’s ability to access their basic needs.”

The Caribbean hub allowed WFP and its partners to mobilise resources immediately, significantly reducing the time it normally takes to move large volumes of humanitarian supplies into an affected country.

“In a situation like that, we are able, through the regional logistics hub here in Barbados, to leverage the assets that are pre-positioned in the hub and transport them to the affected country, in this case Jamaica, to make resources available immediately to support response,” Bogart explained. “That includes shelter, access to clean water, food, medical supplies and energy – all of the essential elements of relief response.”

The hub operates as a multi-partner platform, bringing together governments, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organisations, and private sector partners to ensure rapid and coordinated disaster response.

“To underline that this hub really represents a partnership, we have assets here from many different organisations and many governments from around the world and from here in the region,” the WFP official said. “We’re able to work together using private sector air assets, and we’ve leveraged navies – the French and Dutch navies – to transport those goods to Jamaica.”

One of the key advantages of the Barbados facility, Bogart noted, is the ability to drastically shorten lead times by consolidating supplies in a single, strategically located hub.

“What we’ve seen from having the hub and its activation during the response is that we’re able to reduce lead time significantly by having all of the supplies in one location from all of the partners involved,” he said. “We’re able to get one vessel, complete the loading of that vessel, and move it to the country impacted in a matter of days.”

In a striking example of the hub’s responsiveness, Bogart revealed that a vessel was already being loaded in Barbados while Hurricane Melissa was still battering Jamaica.

“We were already loading a vessel here in Barbados while Melissa was making impact in Jamaica, and it was on the high seas on its way to Jamaica while the hurricane was actually affecting the country,” he said. “That is a significant improvement compared to having multiple supply lines from distant ports in Panama or in the port of Miami.”

He added that the hub not only improves speed but also increases efficiency and reduces costs, allowing humanitarian actors to better meet urgent needs in disaster-stricken countries.

“We’re able to move very quickly with a lot of efficiency, both in terms of time and cost, to meet needs,” Bogart said. “Having this hub here in Barbados fundamentally changes how fast we can go from early warning to real, on-the-ground response.”

The coordination simulation exercise, held at the Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub, is designed to test and strengthen regional preparedness, coordination, and response mechanisms for major disasters.

The experience of responding to Hurricane Melissa underscores the importance of continued investment in regional logistics capacity, as climate-related disasters become more frequent and more intense across the Caribbean, Bogart said.