The incidence of natural events, such as typhoons, hurricanes, tsunamis and floods, has been growing in recent years in parallel with changes in climate conditions on our planet. When they happen in inhabited regions, these events end up causing natural disasters, which become more serious in regions whose population grows in a disorderly way, with enormous damage to the local infrastructure and suffering and pain to the people [6]. In the last three decades, the occurrence of disasters increased from 50 to 400 per year [2] and, for the next 50 years, this rate is expected to be five times higher [4].
The most recent natural disaster was the Hurricane Dorian, which arrived in the Bahamas last Sunday (01/09/19) in category 5, with winds of up to 320 km/h. Authorities warned residents to prepare for strong winds and heavy rain. The National Hurricane Center warned that Dorian could do a lot of damage, but forecasts are always uncertain.
Preparing for a Hurricane is not an easy task. Even because the logistics of natural disasters are complex due to the difficulty of predicting the intensity and duration of the event.
Humanitarian Logistics is an arm of logistics that has the function of planning, implementing some necessary procedures to help the population, managing resources and having the knowledge of the operation in emergency management. Figure 1 shows the comparison between Business Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics.
Figure 1 – Differences between Humanitarian and Business Logistics
Source: [6]
Logistics is a critical aspect for the success of a humanitarian operation [3]. The Supply Chain needs to be flexible to the point of having the ability to respond quickly to unpredictable events and efficiently to budget limitations [5]. However, like every supply chain, the humanitarian one also has its challenges and difficulties. Among them, the administrative and logistical bottlenecks due to the weak infrastructure for receiving donations, and the management of the action of multiple agents involved in the operations (government, aid agencies, donors, military, NGOs and private institutions).
Figure 2 - Humanitarian Supply Chain
Source - [1]
And how to manage the resources? The Sphere Project establishes a set of common and universal norms applicable to all basic humanitarian sectors and proposes that each victim needs between 7,5 and 15 liters of water per day for drinking, cooking and bathing, in addition to ingesting 2,1 thousand calories/day and 3,5 m3 from shelter.
According to Guide to Sanitation in Natural Disasters of the World Health Organization, it is necessary to have a structure for the mobility of people and resources. Cars, planes and boats are useful and allow for more efficient use of technical staff. The best support vehicles are Jeep and Land Rover models as they are more suitable and can move faster. In general, 5 Jeep/Land Rover type vehicles are needed, two vehicles that have the capacity to transport 750 kg, and a truck with a capacity of 3 to 4 tons, would be enough to supply the sanitary operations of 100.000 people.
Another important detail is the location of logistics outposts. These posts have the function of guiding the population, providing medicines and rescue material, in addition to having qualified and trained professionals.
The storage of supplies is also a delicate issue, due to the precarious conditions of the infrastructure in the affected areas. The location of warehouses in cases of natural disasters is an important topic developed in research, as discussed in Distribution of Support Centers for Humanitarian Logistics – Preparedness for response to natural disasters. This article aims to develop a spatial distribution model to reduce the response time of care for populations affected by the disaster. The application of operational decision support models is necessary in many cases, due to the scarcity of time and limited resources.
The development of new technologies helped logistics and reaction time in disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. The British NGO Map Action used GPS, satellite images and Google Maps to obtain the location of homeless people. by the disaster. It was possible to check the conditions of streets and roads, in case they were blocked or had collapsed, facilitating the search for victims and minimizing lost time.
And talking about Google Maps, it is possible to follow the trajectory of Hurricane Dorian in real time and know the location of shelters on the east coast of the United States, as shown in Figures 3 and 4.
Figure 3 – Trajectory of Hurricane Dorian (02/09/19 at 18:30)
Source – Google Maps
Figure 4 – Location of shelters for Hurricane Dorian
Source – Google Maps
Other means of optimizing logistics is through the application of business concepts in disasters, such as the Red Cross, which signed contracts with large retail chains and transport companies in order to obtain pre-established prices for supplies and emergency services, avoiding wasting time. with negotiations.
Logistics in natural disasters is characterized by a set of arduous management activities, combined with the uncertainty of the impact and the difficulty of measuring the damage caused. And all these activities need to be managed, following accountability and transparency in the use of donated resources in a way that guarantees that the objective is actually achieved.
Sources:
[1] Balcik, B., Beamon, BM, Krejci, CC, Muramatsu, KM, & Ramirez, M. (2010). Coordination in humanitarian relief chains: practices, challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Production Economics, 126(1), 22-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2009.09.008.
[2] Kovács, G., & Spens, K. (2007). Humanitarian logistics in disaster relief operations. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 37(2), 99-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09600030710734820.
[3] Trunick, P. (2005). Special report: delivering relief to tsunami victims. Logistics Today, 46(2), 1-3.
[4] Thomas, A., & Kopczak, LR (2007). Life-saving supply chains – challenges and the path forward. In HL Lee & C.-Y. Lee (Eds.), Building supply chain excellence in emerging economies (pp. 93-111). New York: Springer.
[5] Van Wassenhove, L. (2006). Humanitarian aid logistics: supply chain management in high gear. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 57(5), 475-498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602125.
[6] DA COSTA, Sérgio Ricardo Argollo et al. Humanitarian supply chain: an analysis of action processes in natural disasters. Production, v. 25, no. 4, p. 876-893, 2015.
https://www.marinha.mil.br/spolm/sites/www.marinha.mil.br.spolm/files/102236.pdf
http://acaohumanitaria.org.br/temas/projeto-esfera/
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/mercado/me1601201102.htm
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/prod/v25n4/0103-6513-prod-0103-6513147513.pdf
https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/furacao-dorian-destroi-bahamas-caminho-da-costa-da-florida-23920971
