The Johannesburg or Jo’burg Disaster Management is currently a hive of activity. Not only have they circulated a new City of Johannesburg Disaster Plan, but also asked for a commitment from the various volunteer groups.
Alet Rautenbach, who heads the Region 3 Division phoned us late on Friday for a letter of commitment which was sent to her immediately and she has also put down set of dates for all of us to meet on a more regular basis.
This is good news, as my personal feeling was that things during the past year to 18 months have just been too inactive!
Extracts from this circular read as follows:- Section 1 of the Disaster Risk Management Act 57 of 2002 defined Disaster Risk Management (DRM) as “a continuous and integrated multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary process of planning and implementation of measures aimed at disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, and rehabilitation”.
The preventative and risk-reduction elements of the Municipal DRM Plan must be implemented and maintained on a continuous basis. The plan looks into the background and implementation of the necessary action plan after a disaster occurs. This includes the following:-
- The nature of the incident
- The location of the incident
- The size of the incident
- The impact of the incident on the surrounding area
- The resources required to manage the incident in order to achieve the required outcome.
It is also noted that it is not just called “Disaster Management’ anymore but “Disaster Risk Management” and a far more detailed plan is outlined in this document.
Needless to say, we will in due course hear more and possibly participate in discussions around this new disaster plan!
Rautenbach also indicated that a new set of Identification tags will be produced and she will forward the application form to us by next week. This is for obvious reasons as the layout of the card has changed, some current members have either passed on or moved out of the area and a new set of active members is now required to ensure continuity.
The next Region 3 Disaster Risk Management meeting will take place at the Roodepoort Civic centre on Friday the 24th of August.
Reporting for Hamnet, this is Francois Botha, ZS6BUU.
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