Photo By Chief Master Sgt. Raymond Sarracino | U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay James Thessin, left, and Minister Joaquín Roa, head of...... read more read more
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By Jose Ruiz
U.S. Southern Command Public Affairs
ASUNCION, Paraguay - With its landscape devoid of volcanoes and its location far south of the paths taken by tropical cyclones every hurricane season, it’s easy to assume Santa Rosa del Aguaray’s position on the South American continent spares it the kind of natural disasters that occasionally make international headlines.
But the small Paraguayan agricultural town of some 20,000 inhabitants, located 125 miles northeast of the country’s capital, Asuncion, and 67 miles west of Brazil, is situated in an area with a history of seasonal floods, droughts and wildfires that have driven thousands of families from their homes and threatened the livelihood of its inhabitants.
In the past, the Department of San Pedro, where the town is located, and its neighboring departments, lacked a regional disaster response hub for managing emergency relief operations and prepositioning relief supplies. When impacted by these crises, the departments relied solely on the arrival of emergency response personnel, equipment and provisions dispatched from the nation’s capital, several hours driving distance away.
That all changed during a ceremony at the town Feb. 22 marking the official opening of Paraguay’s first regional Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and Disaster Relief Warehouse (DRW) to serve the departments of San Pedro, Concepción, Amambay and Canindeyú, in the country’s east-central region.
The facilities were constructed at a cost of approximately $1.7 million using U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) civil-military assistance funds as part of a Disaster Preparedness Program that aims to help countries in the region build their disaster relief capabilities. The assistance includes the infrastructure, equipment and training needed to ensure the hubs are fully operational once completed.
Speaking to guests during the ceremony, U.S. Ambassador James Thessin underlined what the project’s completion means for the people of Paraguay.
“The donation of these buildings and this capability will increase the efficacy of the local, regional and national governments in responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises, and in this way will improve people’s lives,” he said. “It constitutes a first step in increasing services for the population in all of the regions across the country and is complemented by other U.S. embassy humanitarian assistance programs that aim to help the government support the Paraguayan people.”
“Today is the big day, because we’ve been working on this project for four years, and today it is a reality” said Minister Joaguín Roa, head of Paraguay’s National Emergency Secretariat. “You can be sure of the institutional and professional commitment of Paraguayans who will give these facilities the best care and utilization in benefit of our country and its people.”
According to Steve Carro, Humanitarian Assistance Branch Chief at SOUTHCOM, the disaster preparedness assistance provided to Paraguay is the latest project completed under a program that has a much broader regional focus. “We have built emergency operations centers and disaster relief warehouses in (almost) every country in (the region),” Carro said, adding the assistance can include both regional and national operational centers and warehouses, based on needs identified by countries and verified by SOUTHCOM in close coordination with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).
“In the areas of disaster preparedness, or what OFDA calls ‘risk reduction,’ they’re deemed the subject matter experts,” he explained. “All of our activities have to be coordinated through OFDA, and they have to concur. They’re included in all of our planning activities.”
To date, more that 100 EOC and DRW projects have either been completed or are ongoing, helping 25 countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean strengthen and expand the capabilities needed to aid citizens in times of disaster, while reducing the need for foreign assistance from countries like the United States.
According to USAID, in the last decade, it has deployed 11 disaster response teams to the region. For its part, U.S. Southern Command most recently provided U.S. military support to OFDA-led relief missions in Haiti, Chile and Guatemala in 2010.
In Paraguay, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates the country has been affected by 21 disasters and humanitarian crises in the last decade. OFDA has responded to seven disaster events in Paraguay during that period, including floods, droughts, wildfires, and a yellow fever outbreak. In 2013, heavy rains in Brazil contributed to flooding in many of Paraguay’s low lying areas, affecting more than 12,000 families across six departments, including two of the departments which will now covered by the EOC and DRW in Santa Rosa del Aguaray.
According to Carro, the increased capabilities resulting from the disaster preparedness projects are an affordable alternative to deploying U.S. military forces in support of relief missions.
“It’s a lot more expensive for us to respond than for us to build capacity,” he said
“The average single (disaster) response for DoD (costs) $2.5 million,” he explained, referring to small-scale U.S. military relief missions consisting of approximately 100 people and three helicopters for one week. Carro added that larger, longer missions can be far costlier, citing the $655 million authorized to fund DOD’s support for relief operations in Haiti in 2010 as an example.
“Usually, (the cost) of an EOC or a DRW is between $750,000 and $1 million, depending on the capabilities of the country,” he added. “It’s a capability they can have for a lifetime.”
EOC and DRW costs include funding to train emergency personnel who man and operate the facilities in times of crisis, said Pedro Corraliza, SOUTHCOM Humanitarian Assistance Program analyst. Training for the team in Santa Rosa del Araguay is scheduled to begin Feb. 24.
“They’re going to do scenarios,” he described. “They are going to learn how to use the (EOC) system, and they are going to learn how to communicate with national and international emergency-response personnel.”
Though the program’s biggest impact is the lives that are saved in times of crisis, Corraliza stressed the projects also have a positive economic impact in the countries and communities where they are completed, because much of the funding goes towards locally purchased construction materials and labor.
Describing the program’s long-term impact, Carro said he believes the enduring effect is the public’s confidence in their country’s emergency response capabilities. “We’re trying to get them to the position where (their own) capacity is ready and there,” he said. “People feel more secure and more comfortable if they know that their government is willing and capable to provide basic services.”
| Date Taken: | 02.22.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 02.25.2014 11:35 |
| Story ID: | 121114 |
| Location: | ASUNCION, PY |
| Web Views: | 228 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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