Shelley Cheatham, regional head of office for the United Nations OCHA in the Caribbean, explains how they're coordinating assistance and supplies in preparation for a historic threat from soon-to-be Hurricane Melissa.

The United Nations is responding to the threat posed by storm Melissa, which has already resulted in fatalities in Haiti and is expected to cause further severe impacts across several Caribbean nations. The storm brings risks of torrential rainfall, destructive winds, and life-threatening flooding, raising concerns about a possible humanitarian crisis.

UN agencies, in coordination with local governments and disaster management organisations, are pre-positioning supplies and advancing emergency funds, particularly in Haiti. Efforts include cash transfers to vulnerable households and distribution of essential goods, as well as ongoing coordination with regional partners to ensure rapid response and support for affected communities.

UN prepares for humanitarian disaster from Melissa in the Caribbean

According to the Associated Press, at least three people have already died from impacts due to Melissa in Haiti, and we have not yet seen the worst of the conditions by any stretch. So this storm poses a historic threat to parts of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, with torrential rainfall, destructive winds, and life-threatening flooding that could spark a humanitarian crisis. Now joining us from Panama is Shelly Cheatham, regional head for the office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, also known as OCHA. Shelly, how is the U.N. preparing for what could become a humanitarian crisis across the region? Thank you, Jeff and Damon. Good to be here. Indeed, we invest a lot in advance of the crisis of any disaster in order to be better prepared. We work with the governments, with Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, and the U.N. has teams on the ground across several countries. A lot of what we do is preparing contingency plans, simulations with governments, with communities, but we also have tools to anticipate, and anticipate in order to act before a disaster strikes. And that's what we're doing right now in Haiti and in other countries. In Haiti, we advanced funding from the Central Emergency Response Fund in order to get supplies out, alerts out to people in the communities, as well as cash so people can buy what they need and prepare what they need to before the storm arrives and before the major damage. And hopefully, that way we can mitigate a little bit of that impact. With heavy rain expected in this slow-moving storm, this torrential rain, how does OCHA reach and help Caribbean communities that could be cut off by flooding and landslides? Well, OCHA coordinates. We connect the dots, really. We work with the governments, but we also work with local responders, and that's a huge network of local responders. And that's how we... They're the first ones to respond. It's the communities, it's the local churches, it's the civil society organizations. And that's really how we channel our support, and whether that's information, it's mapping, it's financing supplies, that's how we try to get it out there to those who have access and who are able to respond and provide in their communities as fast as possible. Now, the UN has already allocated $4 million for Haiti ahead of Melissa. What kind of aid will that provide to those folks in Haiti? Indeed. In Haiti, that's helping us preposition from certain central warehouses out to the areas that will be worst impacted. It's bringing supplies out quickly. As I said, it's also cash transfers. What do you want 48 hours before a storm hits? Sometimes it's money to go buy a bus ticket and get yourself out of harm's way. It could be buy medicine and have extra supplies board up your house. So it's getting that a little bit of extra cash also into the most vulnerable households so they can make the decisions and do that work that they need to do to prepare themselves. As well as supplies, it's supplies, it's getting it out there, medicines, having everything really as close as possible so that we can respond as quickly as possible. You mentioned that you are coordinating with Jamaica and the DR and some other nations like Cuba. How do those conversations go? Are you doing briefings? Are there Zoom meetings or how do these conversations go at this step? A lot of it is. A lot of it is remote. We're in touch with the UN teams in Jamaica, in Cuba, in Haiti. But we also work with, jointly, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency out of Barbados. And they have the coordination unit there, which reaches out to all the CARICOM countries. So it's another way of us being in an emergency operations center at the regional level to support the countries themselves and have their response. All right. Shelley Cheatham, regional head of office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's our pleasure. You're doing important work there from Panama City, Panama.

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