ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC) — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is undertaking a nation-wide study on the damage caused Dominica’s infrastructure as a result of Hurricane Maria that ploughed through the island on September 18 killing at least 28 people and leaving billions of dollars in damage.

The study is being done in collaboration with the Housing Division and other stakeholders and according to UNDP representative Massimiliano Tozzi the exercise will not only provide the authorities with a true understanding of the damage caused by the Category 5 storm, but will provide information on how to rebuild stronger.

“Currently we have more than a 100 persons…going throughout the island to assess all the buildings on Dominica. They are organised into 27 teams…, and they are using an…app that is provided by Microsoft ..

“So basically the app allows the assessors to assess the level of damage the building has at the level of the roof, the level of the ceiling, the level of the walls, the level of the ceiling but also to collect some very important demographic information that will allow the next phase to the government of Dominica to plan evidence based policies…”

Over 90 per cent of all buildings—including government facilities— were affected after Hurricane Maria wrought havoc in Dominica.

“So far what I can say is that we have an amount of about one third of the survey reflect that no damage accorded to the housing but we have a lot of survey, two thirds that say the damage has been extensive, we have a high number of houses that have been tagged as “red” which means basically they must not be inhabited any longer, some others have been tagged as “orange” and a smaller number tagged as “yellow”.

He said all the assessors have been trained by UNDP and engineers from the non-governmental group, engineers without borders “so that we can ensure all the data that we gather are consistent”.