Construction has started on a R6,6-million Eden district disaster management centre at Eden municipality in George which will dramatically increase rescue response times during natural disasters such as floods.

The urgency to build new premises for the disaster management‘s joint operations committee became necessary after the November floods last year which caused R630-million damage to the region.

“We learnt many lessons from the 2006 floods and were able to put early warning systems in place when the floods struck on November 21 and 22. However, it was a challenge as there were still problems with communication,” said Eden disaster management head Gerhard Otto.

He said it was necessary to have a centre where responses were co-ordinated, which could avert or reduce future disasters.

“This is especially so as climate changes have caused increased flooding to the region over the past six years,” he said.

The municipality is building a new floor to house the disaster centre on top of its office extension in York Street. “The building should be completed by the end of the year. It is important to manage disaster situations properly with a central co-ordination system where calls can be redirected to the relevant response units at the call centre,” said Eden mayor Rudi Laws. “This will shorten the response time and reduce duplication, which is hampering service delivery at the moment.”

He said he hoped to get financial buy-in from all the municipalities for the effective implementation of the centre.

“However, the George municipality has plans of its own to build a disaster centre, which I feel is a costly duplication as the Eden disaster management centre will have all the facilities and equipment to monitor the whole of the region.”

Otto said the operational costs would amount to R765936 a year, with sectors such as the fire and ambulance services and police contributing to the running costs and maintenance of computer equipment, a new radio mast and vehicle tracking devices.

Otto said once the disaster centre was completed, the response time to emergencies would be dramatically reduced as tracking devices had been installed in vehicles, enabling them to be redirected to disaster areas quickly. “The centre will also collect information to facilitate risk-reduction planning, such as seasonal climate forecasts and we will then be able to profile which communities are vulnerable to risks.”