Rapid Response Unit aids relief effort in Guyana

Kelly in Guyana

Kelly Allen of Portrush Lifeboat Crew has been a member of the RNLI Rapid Response Unit since it was formed five years ago. In February this year the Department for International Development (DFID) asked the Unit to respond to the relief effort in Guyana, South America.

Unprecedented rainfall in the past two months has caused serious flooding in large areas of Guyana's coastal regions. Rainfall for December 2004 was close to double the monthly average and for the first two weeks of January rainfall was five times the normal monthly average. On the 19th of January, President Jagdeo declared several heavily populated regions of Guyana disaster areas. It is estimated that nearly 294,000 people are affected and UNICEF estimates that 40% of those are children. Kelly describes her experience as part of the only Search and Rescue team to respond to Guyana's catastrophe...

The Antonov Cargo Plane

"Our deployment involved two separate teams. My team of 15, led by Adrian Carey mustered at Heathrow airport from where we flew to Guyana via Suriname. We were met by a second team, led by Owen Medland, who had already endured an epic twenty-two hour flight from Bournemouth onboard the Antonov cargo plane that carried all our boats and equipment. We were welcomed graciously by the Guyana Defence Force and Coastguard Agency (GDF), who were our hosts for three weeks in their barracks in Georgetown.

"The flooding had originated from the badly maintained East Demerara Conservancy Dam. The dam is predominately constructed of peat and clay banks, which are subsiding and collapsing in places under the pressure of excess water levels and unprecedented out-of-season rainfall. The dam has a seventy-mile perimeter, holding back an enormous quantity of water - the threat of a dam-bust was an imminent and very scary prospect whilst we were on deployment!

Kelly as part of the team surveying the dam

"Our team facilitated the work of Dutch engineers who were assessing the situation and what emergency repairs needed to be made. Their advice to us that evening was to sleep in the top bunks of our beds, as they were very nervous about the dam's condition. They were of the opinion that even the tiny wake from our D-class at speed could be enough to cause a breach. In many areas sandbags were the only enforcement strengthening the peat dam walls.

"It was DFID's aim for us to leave all our boats and equipment in Guyana on our departure, so an important part of our deployment was to pass on as much knowledge, experience and training as possible before we left! We trained the GDF in all we knew about operating in flooding and swift water environments and familiarised them with operating our equipment. The Guyanese were brilliant and seemed really glad of our contributions and assistance.

D-boat in action

"Every day we operated our boats within the capital Georgetown and travelled to outlying river populations inaccessible by road in order to facilitate the work of various NGOs (such as Red Cross, Pan American Health Organisation and UNICEF). These agencies needed to assess the extent of the aid required and start to work out how it should be delivered.

"We travelled up the Mahaica river and tributaries in a convoy of D-classes, covering up to 80 miles in one day. We experienced some torrential rains and could easily understand how quickly water levels can rise on the Conservancy Dam. We also met a variety of local wildlife including baboons, anacondas, snakes and caymans, stow-away lizards and man-eating ants!

"The flooding in urban areas was largely stagnant, large communities of humans and animals were living in sewage-contaminated water. In Georgetown the biggest problem after the flooding was disease caused by these conditions, specifically Leptosprotisis, a bacterial disease that affects humans and animals. Other health risks to communities, to our own team and the other organisations operating within the flood zones were also serious, including E. coli, Giardiasis and Hepatitis A.

Mother and child at clinic

"One of the main problems was a general lack of health education. The Mahacia communities did not think it wrong to use contaminated, untreated river water as their primary source of drinking water. We assisted the Red Cross in giving out information and water purifying tablets. One of our crew was a doctor who spent lots of time checking rashes and illness caused by the dirty water. One mother brought her feverish child to us who had chicken pox needing help and assistance with medication.

"The whole experience was very humbling. I met people with very little who were living in unbearable circumstances, they were smiling even though their entire year's income and food crops were lying under diseased water. They welcomed us into their flooded homes and often sent me on my way with gifts of watermelons. Those watermelons were the tastiest things I have ever eaten, nothing like what you buy in the supermarket!"

You can see some of Kelly's pictures in our online gallery.