Background
On September 18th 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Dominica, as a category 5 storm with winds of up to 160 mph. The small island with a population of 72,000, has been devastated and assessments claimed that there had been over 30 fatalities and that the island's entire infrastructure – homes, agriculture, electricity and water supplies – had been destroyed. 90% of all buildings have lost their roofs, no electricity or telecommunication systems remained intact, 100% of food crops have been destroyed, hospitals have been damaged and basic items, such as food and medicine, were in real demand. A large number of the population found refuge in community shelters and homes of relatives or friends. Regular activities have seized including school and commercial activities as the people of Dominica struggle to survive.
About The Project
As the shelter program manager, my job was to facilitate the infrastructure for a roof reconstruction operation in six communities on the island of Dominica during the recovery stage of the post-hurricane Maria period. In addition, I had to execute and oversee the entire operation.
With no previous protocol for the shelter program, I took the following measures in order to see it through:
-
A thorough study of the New Dominica Housing Standard.
-
Devising a work protocol for the entire project within a pre-defined budget.
-
Facilitation of three storage facilities that supported the organization's entire jurisdiction.
-
Procurement of construction materials and tools.
-
Facilitation of a construction materials transportation network.
-
Establishing connections within the local communities in order to identify households, and conducting both physical and socio-economical surveys of these households.
-
Creating connections and handling negotiation with international aid organizations and agencies in order to improve the joint reconstruction effort.
-
Identify, recruit, train and supervise local skilled laborers (10 teams in total) to build in accordance with the new building code.
Challenges and Achievments
Working in Dominica during the months following hurricane Maria meant to carry this operation under challenging circumstances, such as severe shortage of skilled labor, an extremely short supply of construction materials and tools, dysfunctional communication networks, long distances between different working sites, harsh weather conditions and more.
During an eight months period, 110 roofs had been completely reconstructed or retrofitted to meet the standards of the new building code. Ten more roofs than what the shelter team was initially required to reconstruct by the donor.
Here are some selected works from this period:
Before
Before
Self-Help
In some cases, when materials were not in kind or when the required work wasn't within our budget limits, we encouraged the house owners to help us help them.
The slide above shows a work in which the expansion bolts had to be purchased independently by the beneficiary so we could install the wooden wall-plate on top of the reinforced concrete ring-beam.
The slide to the left shows a work where the gable pitch had to be lifted. The Gable brickwork was done by workers hired by the beneficiary, and the rest of the roof was installed by our teams.
The entire building process was supervised by us.
Before
Before
Roof reinfocement
Some roofs suffered severe damage but were not completely destroyed. Thus, the families were still living in those houses.
In these cases, we had to retrofit the roof to meet the new building code within its existing structural frame.
The entire construction work had to be done without having the families move out of the house throughout the whole process.
The slide to the left shows a work where the existing structural frame remained in place, yet, still needed further reinforcement.
In addition, other roof parts required repairing.
