The Western Cape has over years been exposed to various natural and human-made emergencies anddisasters resulting in tragedies and longstanding damage to communities. Our communities have beenexposed to events like floods, devastating fires, oil spills, droughts, earthquakes and train accidents whichaffected 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 andmanaging rescue and medical operations, to bring relief to communities, to address the after affects of adisaster and to assess the cause and result of these disasters and to plan pre-emptively for possible futureincidents. One outstanding factor is the common denominator: - That in every incident proper coordinationand management maximally combined the efforts of all spheres of government, Emergency Servicesauthorities 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 SouthAfrica. I am confident that this will be a learning experience to delegates to anticipate and address disastersthey are faced with.
The three day conference, which starts today at the River Club in Observatory, will see a review anddebrief on the Montagu floods, the Sealand Express incident, rail incidents at the Cape Town station andMuldersvlei, major mass events including the ICC Cricket World Cup, Cape Argus Cycle Tour and the46664 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 Managementsystem developed for the Western Cape. This system, the only one of its kind in South Africa, immediatelyalerts our Provincial Disaster Management team to incidents which have developed or may develop intoemergencies beyond the ability of the local authority to handle. This system also allow us to track resourceslike vehicles and medical teams dispatched to the area of the emergency, to take calls and send furtherresources, 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 inthe 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 andinformation systems in place and most importantly, cooperative government relationships established. Allthese enabled us to deliver an even better service to the people of our province. The Department of LocalGovernment is proud of its involvement with this initiative. I would like to welcome all the delegates at thisDisaster Debrief and I hope that our experiences will be of value in other parts of South Africa as well.
