00:00With Hurricane Melissa bearing down on the Caribbean, disaster relief nonprofit Good360 is
00:05working to deliver critical aid. And joining us now is Sidira Baldy, CEO of Good360, a new partner
00:12of ours here at AccuWeather, and you guys do some tremendously good work. What's the latest you're
00:17hearing from your Good360 teams on the ground about the conditions in Jamaica?
00:22Hi, Jeff. Thank you for having me. The conditions are dire. This is definitely, you know, this
00:30is a cap five making landfall in Jamaica. Definitely a catastrophic storm. And our partners are
00:39already looking to pre-position supplies that are going to be desperately needed over the
00:46coming days and weeks.
00:47Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about how this is a humanitarian crisis, so it's all
00:52hands on deck. How are you at Good360 coordinating with relief agencies in Jamaica? And what types
00:58of supplies and aid are you deploying?
01:01So right now we are working with one of our partners, Global Empowerment Mission, who has
01:06a warehouse in Jamaica. We've already started to stage to ship supplies like solar generators,
01:13hygiene kits, tarps. This will definitely be a long-term recovery situation and most likely,
01:21sadly, a humanitarian crisis.
01:23So, Neera, how is the partnership with AccuWeather helping with Good360's planning and disaster
01:29response?
01:30Yes, so this is our first time working together on a disaster as our partnership's fairly new.
01:37And it's been incredibly helpful just over the last week in getting these early briefing
01:42documents that we get from you all so that we were able to start reaching out to our partners,
01:48you know, a few days ago, really, and start thinking about what the essential needs would
01:53be and then getting those coordinated across different partners that are going to either
01:58be in the region or that are already located on the island.
02:01And you mentioned this is going to be a long-term relief effort measured in weeks, months, even
02:07years. But in the short term, what do the next several days look like as you help communities
02:12throughout the Caribbean in Hurricane Melissa's path?
02:16Well, it's too early to tell right now. Having, you know, thinking through other similar type
02:23storms and disasters, the first few days are going to be a lot of recovery, trying to understand
02:31where people are potentially trapped. There are mountainous areas on the island, so there
02:37will most likely be pretty significant mudslides. And, you know, the first two weeks are critical,
02:44finding people, ensuring that they're safe. And then from there, we will go into a next
02:49stage, which is really ensuring that we can get shelter, food, wash, which is water, sanitation,
02:56and hygiene kits. It's going to be a concentrated effort with a lot of partnership between several
03:03different NGOs locally. And then those that are based here in the U.S. that are either working there
03:09or about to deploy. But this is absolutely going to be a long-term recovery situation.
03:16And a very fluid situation.
03:18Sanera Baldy, CEO of Good360, thanks for joining us and thank you for the important work you're doing.
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