French West Indies, Hurricane Irma : Drinking water, an absolute emergency

The day after Irma – a category-5 storm, the highest on the hurricane intensity scale – hit, Saint Martin (40,000 inhabitants in the French part) and Saint Barthélemy (almost 9,500 inhabitants) presented a desolate landscape: boats and cars embedded in buildings, and heaps of debris with a jumble of fragments of roofs, windows and walls. The airports were out of use for several days, while electrical facilities and seawater desalination plants were damaged. The human toll was compounded by considerable material destruction.

Concentrating efforts on Saint Martin

As they do not have any natural freshwater reserves such as rivers or water tables to which they can turn in an emergency, the two islands depend on three seawater desalination plants managed by Veolia. However, these were heavily damaged and the Group geared into action to supply drinking water to the populations.

“The damage to the water production and distribution infrastructure was severe and it will take several months to return to normal service,” highlights Thierry Vandevelde, Executive Officer of the Veolia foundation, on his return from the field. “The facilities are obviously located on the coast and were therefore partly submerged when the hurricane swept through.”

The teams’ efforts were concentrated in Saint Martin, where the desalination units and networks were most affected.

Restarting water production and distribution

On September 22, drinking water production and distribution slowly but surely started up again in Saint Martin. Ahead of the set targets, the desalination facilities were already delivering 1.5 million liters/day, i.e. 30% of the plant’s pre-disaster production. The Veolia teams worked tirelessly on the network and individual connections to gradually restore them to working order. In early October, production exceeded three million liters per day and over 65% of households were being supplied once more. An achievement down to everyone’s involvement, including members of staff from the local area, Guadeloupe and France, experts in emergency situations, desalination, drinking water distribution, wastewater and network rehabilitation. They all worked in close collaboration with government services, the local authority and other local operators such as EDF.

Long-term emergency management

The volunteers from the Veolia foundation began by focusing on getting the Veolia mobile desalination unit from Madrid up and running. In the meantime, the water reserves gathered in anticipation of the hurricane provided a supply to the hospital in Marigot, the large town to the west of Saint Martin, in the first days after Irma hit. As a provisional emergency solution, twelve district water stations were set up in parallel by the French Red Cross with the support of the Foundation’s teams. The “sanitary” quality water distributed met hygiene needs but did not initially replace bottled water for drinking. “We are still in a state of emergency,” Nicolas de Saint-Martin, Director in charge of monitoring overseas territories for the General Counsel of Veolia Water in France (see interview), reiterated in early October. “The Veolia crisis unit is continuing its daily briefings with local personnel — information sharing, joint decisions, feedback of needs, etc. — nights and weekends included!”

With the gradual resumption of production, life on the island is slowly getting back on track. Veolia must now begin the long process of gradually reconnecting all the districts over several months. At the same time, the Group is working relentlessly to restore wastewater services. The priority is cleaning the sewers to prevent an accumulation of wastewater and the inherent sanitation risks. After the time trial, a marathon is now beginning…
 

En savoir plus :

> Significant progress made in restoring water services in Saint-Martin
> Fondation Veolia website
>Desalination, promoting access to drinking water for hundreds of millions of people