Minutes of Cluster -Engineering/Risk Assessment Update

Below are the minutes from a meeting of groups in the Haiti Shelter Cluster who are reviewing progress made by the different key groups and NGOs involved in ENGINEERING who are ASSESSING DAMAGE TO STRUCTURES in Haiti.

Note: From today on, I'll be posting links to Situation Reports from all UN Clusters on this blog. I'll occassionally post the minutes that are relevant to key questions many people have across sectors.

Haiti Earthquake – Coordinating assessments
Meeting, 13-02-2010, 09:30, UN-HABITAT office

Agenda

Attendance
DFID, UNHABITAT, UNOPS, Emergency technical engineers, architect de l’urgence, World bank, DFID, ECHO, IOM, UNDP-ERCC, CARE, Canadian Red Cross.

Updates
Emergency architects
- They are currently training Haitian engineers in quick building damage assessments for case by case inspections.
- Training materials should be ready Monday, and will be cleared.
Emergency technical engineers
- Currently have a team of 5 engineers, though 4 more teams are on stand by. Teams are on two week rotations.
- have focused on engineering analysis of strategic buildings.
- One challenge has been to identify which assessment code to use
- They are happy to share methodologies that they are using and work in collaboration with members of this group.
UNOPS
- Working with ministry of public works to build capacity.
- Their target is to train 200 Haitian engineers. Assessment includes the use of hand held computers
- They are currently looking to focus on potential return sites of displaced people, to de-pressurise displacement sites. Working with CCCM cluster.
- Have information specialist arriving next week.
UNDP
- Planning an analysis of public infrastructure requirements as part of PDNA.
UNHABITAT
- Bringing in NSET engineers x 2 arriving on Wednesday and will produce:
- A situation analysis of post earthquake Haiti that includes the identification of building typologies, level/grade and type of damage and destruction of housing and other infrastructure and an assessment of the possibility of repair, retrofitting and reconstruction. The situation analysis will provide guidance on developing policy and implementation strategies on damage assessment and reconstruction.
- An adjusted damage assessment training curricula to the situation in Haiti.
- Training of Trainers on EQ resistant building guideline for local builders, local engineers, social mobilisers and community leaders in earthquake preparedness and mitigation technologies to carry out training at the village, neighbourhood and settlement level.
- UNOSAT satellite imagery indicates that 38% of buildings were destroyed. Ground assessments will corroborate satellite imagery with mapping on the ground.
- Objective to establish a relationship between satellite imagery and ground imagery for use in future disasters.
- Note there can be issues with field validation if competence is limited.
UNOSAT
- Damage estimation is based on 15cm resolution satellite imagery. It is based on destroyed buildings and buildings with rubble visible. This may include buildings with debris that are structurally ok. It will not include buildings with structural damage that might not show up on satellite imagert.
- Jacmel, Leogane and Petit Guave have also been analysed. The next step will be to consolidate all satellite assessments
WB / PDNA
- This will last 2-3 weeks. It will aim to get damage and loss estimates, which should include financial as well as capacity costs.
Canadian red cross
- Are working in rural areas near jacmel. The are interested to assist people to return to rural homesteads where safe.
- Need to identify resources to get engineering support.
CARE
- Primary interest to identify which public buildings could be used as hurricane shelters.
- Have expertise that they can bring in – but interested to know who can provide support first
Military
- Not present at meeting but need to coordinate for prioritization and tasking.
- Potential issues of mandate and liability with damage assessment.
Local NGOs and private companies
- There are local NGOs but there is not any solid information on what has happening and is played.
Ministry of works assessment unit
- Capacity currently limited but with support is growing. (see UNOPS above)
- Technical working group has been established within the ministry.
- Have office where coordination should be lead from.
- CNIGS (Centre National d’information geographique et spatiale) Mapping unit

Priorities

Various priorities were discussed but there was no clear agreement on overall strategy / approach. Some of the discussion points were:

- Need for clarity on messaging (including a process to agree public information at all levels of government).
- Need to compare risks of families living under plastic in congested camps during hurricane season with associated public health and flood risk with seismic risk.
- Need to put together training group to compile common materials / standards.
- Need to harmonise between internationally perceived needs and the needs of Haitian people.
- Need to identify number of engineers anticipated
- Establish agreed moral standards in assessment community
- Need to establish formal approval process on safety of buildings.
- Establish consistency in quality control and certify according to government approved methodology.
- Establish a common seal to mark buildings / (does special paint need to be imported?).
- Address the lack of trust in damage assessment.

Building types/ areas priorities:
- Dangerous buildings – need to link report to demolition teams.
- Critical infrastructure
- Potentially religious structures are Haitian priority.
- Buildings for use as cyclone shelters.
- Public buildings.
- Schools and health facilities.
- Return areas for families in IDP camps. A major challenge with shelter is decompressing major camps. Assessing the return areas for families in IDP camps and associated return will support with this humanitarian imperative. However, there are currently limited assessment resources in country.
- Rural areas
Approach:
Assess by neighborhood / zones?
Earthquake has local impacts so focus on high impact areas?
Actions

Training materials
- UNHABITAT, Emergency Architects, UNOPS to and other actors to share training materials
UNOPS to:
share information focal point in ministry.
- to invite group to ministry as soon as feasible.
- UNHABITAT to share spreadsheet of capacity.
- Present matrix of capacity
- Establish mailing group

10. Next meeting
12:00 pm at UNHABITAT /PDNA tent; Saturday 20/02/2010.