Samoa has limited warehousing capacities throughout the country. In the main centre of Apia transport, wholesale food and hardware companies fully utilise their storage capacities, and some may be willing to provide ad-hoc support in time of emergencies. There are many flat areas, suitable for either container storage or the erection of Mobile Storage Units (MSUs) if required in an emergency situation (e.g. Betham Brothers Enterprises have 2 acres security fenced).

There are also school and church buildings that would be available for temporary storage.

In the villages, the churches are the most appropriate temporary storage facilities; the Mormon churches particularly are very solid and located in fenced and protected environments. Each village has churches on its territory, and there are also many open-sided meeting houses (Fale Tele) throughout all villages. 

For more information on storage company contact details, please see the following link: HQ staff will input a link to section 4.6 Storage and Milling Companies Contact List here.

Commercial Storage

Containers are generally used for short-term storage; these are readily available for rental or procurement.

Around the port, a network of container depots and pack/unpack facilities can be seen. Some important warehousing and distribution centres have sprung up, but these are often dedicated to major commodities, such as industrial products. The Port of Apia handles the majority of export and import cargo, and the minor ports have little or no storage facilities.

There are few facilities that could be considered intermodal sites. At the ports there are the usual on-wharf container stacking areas and limited covered packing/unpacking facilities within the port precincts. Some private sector transport companies and shipping lines have off-wharf container depots providing some consolidation areas for container storage. There are also some industry specific warehouse and distribution centres but little in the way of common user stores.

[1] Warehouse Type: Open storage, container, rub-hall, silo, concrete, other, unspecified

[2] Warehouse Access: Raised-siding, flat

[3] Warehouse condition: Appears intact, appears damaged, under construction/repair

Storage Used by Humanitarian Organisations

Storage capacities at the main logistics hubs (i.e. Apia port, Faleolo International airport) are available for emergency operations, however the size and operational aspects of those capacities are only sufficient for small to medium scale scenarios. Any large-scale emergency operations will need additional storage capacities. 

In the secured area of the International Airport (13°49'52.37"S 172° 0'7.82"W), land is available for setting up MSUs. This land is in a flood-free area but should require a raised platform before MSU’s are erected (in case of heavy rains).

The International Airport is in a disaster-prone area (cyclone surge waves). 

Near the NEOC / Fire Division compound, a disaster-free area, land is also available for setting up MSUs (13°50'30.35"S 171°48'36.47"W).

The land is in a flood free area but should require a raised platform before MSUs are erected (in case of heavy rains).

Contingency Stocks

Several agencies manage pre-positioned stock of humanitarian contingency items in various locations throughout in the country. The largest of these, Red Cross, aim to have stocks of tarps, tents, water containers, WASH items blankets etc. in quantities sufficient to supply 10% of the population of each area stocks are prepositioned in.  

Shipping containers are used for storage and are generally fully utilized. There are ongoing plans to share storage space between agencies. This is being coordinated by the WFP (Fiji office).

The following agencies have prepositioned stock in Samoa: Samoa Red Cross, Caritas, NDMO, ADRA and Rotary.

For further details, all monthly stockpile mapping is posted through the Pacific Page under ‘Preparedness’ on the Global Log Cluster website.

See the following link https://logcluster.org/preparedness/pacific

Public Sector Storage

There is no public sector storage of any significant capacity available.

Cold Chain Storage

Local cool chain storage is limited to private facilities used by food wholesalers and retailers and is generally fully utilized. They often consist of refrigerated containers. For incoming agencies these should be arranged prior to arriving.