By Precious D. Freeman
The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) in collaboration with the government of Liberia along with the Representative for District 9, Frank Saa Foko has identified with some residents of various communities in Montserrado and its environs.
The communities that benefited include the 12th Street, 24th Street and Wroto Town communities due to a disaster they encountered few months ago. Some of the items that were donated included, several bags of rice, bundles of 32 gauge zincs, packs of nails and few pieces of mosquito nets.
According to the chairman for the 24th Street community, Carlos M. Joseph, the disaster occurred two months ago at night as a result of fire outbreak which rendered several community dwellers homeless.
He added that the residents were unable to salvage any of their belongings because the area was swampy and inaccessible for Fire Fighters to have even ventured there.
“Had it not been the human mentality of the youths, chairman and others in the community who put forces together to quench the fire, it would have been a different case, whereby some family members might have perished in the fire,” he explained.
According to the Deputy Executive Director for NDMA Augustin Tamba, even though they are in charge of responding to all the disasters in the country, the victims should always be very patient and appreciative, adding that President George M. Weah is always concerned about his people and that they were given strict mandate that anytime such disaster takes place, they should respond and sympathize with the victims because he does not want his people to grieve.
“The President saw it expedient to have empowered the NDMA and formed the Presidential Disaster Response Team (PDRA) to alleviate their sufferings whenever such incidents occur,” he clarified.
Mr. Tamba pleaded with the victims to manage and be appreciative with whatever they had received from them because little is much when God is in it.
He further stated that they have lots of issues to attend to because there are more than hundred cases and attending to them can make them not to meet some victims on time, so they should forgive them for their procrastination.
“We will be coming up with a project that will try to sensitize our people on the use of electrical power as we are working closely with the Liberia National Fire Service because most of the fire victims encounter electrical power short circuit,” he said.
The District Representative Frank Saa Foko then appreciated the Government of Liberia and NDMA for their support and response to the victims and promised to play his part by also donating some items to the victims.