Disaster Debrief: Sharing our experience in anticipating and addressing disasters

Sharing Our Knowledge And Experience With The Rest Of South Africa

Delegates and role-players from across the country representing national departments, provincial departments, municipalities, disaster management organisations and NGO's are attending a Western Cape Disaster Debrief hosted by the Western Cape Branch of the Disaster Management Institute of Southern Africa (DMISA) and sponsored by the Provincial Government of the Western Cape.

The Western Cape has over years been exposed to various natural and human-made emergencies and disasters resulting in tragedies and longstanding damage to communities. Our communities have been exposed to events like floods, devastating fires, oil spills, droughts, earthquakes and train accidents which affected the province and by implication the wider South African community.

Various role-players in the Western Cape are always on the scene of these disasters, coordinating and managing rescue and medical operations, to bring relief to communities, to address the after affects of a disaster and to assess the cause and result of these disasters and to plan pre-emptively for possible future incidents. One outstanding factor is the common denominator: - That in every incident proper coordination and management maximally combined the efforts of all spheres of government, Emergency Services authorities and applicable NGO's, relief agencies based on the required roll-out plan.

I am pleased that, through this initiative the Western Cape can share its experience with the rest of South Africa. I am confident that this will be a learning experience to delegates to anticipate and address disasters they are faced with.

The three day conference, which starts today at the River Club in Observatory, will see a review and debrief on the Montagu floods, the Sealand Express incident, rail incidents at the Cape Town station and Muldersvlei, major mass events including the ICC Cricket World Cup, Cape Argus Cycle Tour and the 46664 concert as well as various perspectives from medical and rescue services, SAPS and fire services.

The delegates will also participate in an exercise to demonstrate the Disaster Information Management system developed for the Western Cape. This system, the only one of its kind in South Africa, immediately alerts our Provincial Disaster Management team to incidents which have developed or may develop into emergencies beyond the ability of the local authority to handle. This system also allow us to track resources like vehicles and medical teams dispatched to the area of the emergency, to take calls and send further resources, to log the impact of the disaster and produce situation reports for National Disaster Management. In short, this new system will speed up our reaction times, help us allocate the most appropriate resources in the shortest time and allow us to make rapid decisions when delays could costs lives.

The Western Cape can share its experience acquired over years, with the proper operational plans and information systems in place and most importantly, cooperative government relationships established. All these enabled us to deliver an even better service to the people of our province. The Department of Local Government is proud of its involvement with this initiative. I would like to welcome all the delegates at this Disaster Debrief and I hope that our experiences will be of value in other parts of South Africa as well.

Enquiries: Jan Bosman
Cell: 083 775 5312