Flood Preparedness

Floods, which area natural hazard, need not become a disaster, if we are prepared and areaware
of how to deal with them. This would reduce the losses of life and minimizehuman suffering.
This guide lists simple things one can do to stay safe and protect onefrom floods.
Before flooding occurs
1.

Know the route to the nearest safe shelters that you area aware off.2.

Keep the First Aid Kit ready with extra medication for snake bite and diarrhea3.

Strong ropes for tying things4.

A radio, torch and spare batteries5.

Stocks of fresh water, dry food, candles, matchbox, kerosene etc6.

Umbrellas and bamboo sticks (to protect from snakes)7.

Higher ground where people and animals can take shelter
When you hear a flood warning
1.

Tune in to your radio or watch for warning and advice2.

Keep vigil of flood warning given by local authorities3.

Keep dry food and drinking water and warm clothes ready4.

Check your emergency kit
I f you need to evacuate
1.

Pack clothing, essential medication, valuables, personal papers etc in water proof bags to be
taken to the safe shelter.2.

Raise furniture, appliances on beds and tables3.

Put sandbags in the toilet bowl and cover all drain holes to prevent sewage back flow.4.

Do not get into water of unknown depth and current5.

Lock your house and take the recommended or known evacuation routes for yourarea of safe
shelter.
During Floods
1.

Drink boiled water or use halogen tablet to purify water before drinking.2.

Keep your food covered3.

Do not let children remain on empty stomach4.

Use bleaching powder and lime to disinfect the surroundings5.

Avoid entering flood waters. If you need to enter then were proper foot wear.6.

Stay away from water over knee level.
After a Flood
1.

Stay tuned to local radio.2.

Do not allow children to play in, or near, flood waters.3.

Stay away from drains, culverts.4.

Do not use electrical appliances.5.

Do not eat food, which has been in floodwaters.6.

Boil tap water.7.

Use halogen tablets before drinking.
8.Be careful of snake bites, snakebites are common during floods
Flood Mitigation Strategies:
There are two different ways to mitigate floods: -
o

Structural
o

Non- StructuralStructural measures are in the nature of physical measures and help in
modifying the floods,
while non- structural measures are in the nature of planning and help in
modifying the losses due to floods.
In the structural measures we keep the
water away from people
and in the non-structural measures to try to keep
the people away fromwater
. All of these works can be individually divided into long term and short-termmeasures.
Structural Measures: a) Water Shed Management:
Timely cleaning, de-silting and deepening of natural waterreservoir and drainage channels (both
urban and rural) must be taken up.
b) Reservoirs:

The entire natural water storage place should be cleaned on a regularbasis. Encroachments on
tanks and ponds or natural drainage channel share to beremoved well before the onset of
monsoon.
c) Natural water retention Basins:
Constructionand protection of all the flood protectionembankments, ring bunds and other
bunds. Damsand levees can also be constructed which can beused as temporarily storing space
which reducedthe chances of lower plains getting flooded.
d) Buildings on elevated area:
The buildings inflood prone areas should be constructed on anelevated area and if necessary on
stilts andplatform.
Non Structural Measures: a) Flood Plain Zoning:

Flood plain zoning, which places restrictions on the use of landon flood plains, can reduce the
cost of flood damage. Local governments may pass lawsthat prevent uncontrolled building or
development on flood plains to limit flood risks andto protect nearby property. Landowners in
areas that adopt local ordinances or laws tolimit development on flood plains can purchase
flood insurance to help cover the cost of damage from floods.
Buildings on stilts or on a platformPedestal
Construction in a flood prone area


b) Flood Forecasting and warning:
These are issued for different areas mostly by theCentral water Commission/ Meteorological
department and by the State Irrigation/ FloodDepartment.


10hours while in the case of hurricane Katrina a month later it was more than 48
hours.During this critical period it is the community which has to look towards
itself for self help. Therefore if the communities are mobilized and trained to
assess their own risk through participatory risk assessment process, develop their
own contingency plansand set up their own teams for evacuation, search and
rescue, emergency shelter, firstaid etc, the risks of cyclones can be managed with
significant reduction in number of deaths and injuries.The post 1991 cyclones in
Bangladesh have demonstrated how a CommunityBased Disaster Preparedness
(CBDP) programme could make a drastic reduction inthe risks of cyclonic
disasters. Therefore, more and more governments have adoptedCBDP as an
important strategy for disaster risk management particularly in thecoastal areas.
The Government of Philippines has in fact amended their laws todevolve certain
emergency response functions to the communities. The Governmentof India is
implementing the largest ever CBDP programme in 169 multi-hazarddistricts of 17
States covering nearly 300 million people.
Risk Transfer and Risk Financing
Mounting economic losses due to cyclones cannot be compensated by
theGovernment whose role would be limited to providing ex-gratia relief to the
next of kin of persons who have died or to those sustained injuries and to provide
support forthe reconstruction of houses and livelihood regeneration for the poor
and lowermiddle class people. Government support would also be necessary for
reconstructionof the damaged public assets. The risks of industrial, commercial
and otherinfrastructure and assets in the private and household sector can only be
securedthrough the mechanism of risk financing and risk insurance. As the country
develops,the share of private sector in the GDP would increase and, therefore, risk
financingwould be assuming increasing importance. In the developed countries
nearly ninetypercent of the assets are covered by insurance against natural disasters
which hasencouraged collateral investment on disaster resistant housing and
infrastructure so asto reduce the premium for insurance. This has been a win-win
situation for the privateand individual sector in transferring their risks to the
insurance companies, for theinsurance companies in generating business and for
the government in reducing itsexpenditure on relief and reconstruction while at the
same time encouraging privateinvestments for better safety standards for buildings
and infrastructure. Theexperiences gained in this regard need to be further adapted
according to theconditions of low and middle income countries. Various innovative
services andproducts like micro insurance, micro credit etc. have been developed
in manycountries for increasing the resilience of local communities. Micro credit
isparticularly playing an importance role in retrofitting the vulnerabilities of the
poorersections of the community, especially the women, in the developing
countries.
Capacity Development and Training
Capacity development is the most cost effective method of reducing
thevulnerabilities of the people living in the coastal areas. The coastal communities
havea certain degree of capacities built into their social systems and practices
acquiredthrough inherited experiences of generations. But such indigenous
capacities are oftenoverwhelmed by the vagaries of nature due to various
anthropogenic factors like the

11degradation of environment, changing land uses, pressures of population
onsettlements, climate change etc. Therefore, the local capacities have to
becontinuously upgraded and further developed according to the changing needs
and thedevelopments of science and technology and other improved practices in
varioussectors. The challenge of capacity development is to transfer the new
horizons of knowledge into actionable modules at the local levels for the local
people by the localcommunity. Such capacities can be developed through
meetings, interactions,discussions, exposure visits and trainings.Training is
particularly necessary for cutting edge functionaries within andoutside the
government at various levels in different sectors to impart them withnecessary skill
for cyclone risk reduction and management. Training programmeshave to be
practical, scenario based and exercise and problem solving oriented so thatthe
functionaries are aware of their specific responsibilities and are able to
dischargethose responsibilities efficiently before, during and after the cyclonic
disasters.Training is also required for those community members who would be
part of the community response teams for the initial critical hours and days till
specializedassistance from the government and non-governmental agencies from
the outside areorganized. Such trainings may include maroon search and rescue,
first aid,evacuation, temporary shelter management, arrangements of drinking
water andsanitation, provision of cooked food etc. Such trainings can be better
organized by acore group of community trainers who can be trained intensively by
the specializedgovernment and non-government agencies.
Awareness and Education
While training and capacity development target specific groups according totheir
specific training needs, awareness generation is more of a general in naturewhich
sensitizes common masses about the risks, vulnerabilities of cyclones and
thepreventive, mitigative and preparedness measures that can be taken at
thegovernment, community, household and individual level. Electronic, print and
folk media can play important roles in awareness generation on a large
scale.Awareness and sensitization programme can also be organized for
morespecific and limited audience such as parliamentarians, policy makers, media
andother selected audience.Cyclone education programme, on the contrary, would
be more formalizedcurriculum which can be institutionalized within the education
system at variouslevels. Disaster management has already been included in the
educational curriculumof the schools in many countries and cyclone risk mitigation
can be a part of suchcurriculum. Various branches of science and technology can
have course modules onCyclone Risk Management. For example, civil engineering
and architectural coursescan have curriculum on cyclone resistant housing and
infrastructure. Medical andmental health sciences can have course module on
emergency health and traumamanagement for cyclone affected people, while IT
and Communication sciences mayhave courses on Early Warning and
Communication. Such curriculum at variouslevels of general and professional
courses would help to develop necessary

12professional expertise to support the disaster risk mitigation and
preparednessprogrammes of the government and other agencies at different levels.
Contingency Plans
In the not too distant past whenever a severe cyclone storm has struck thecoastal
areas in the developing countries the communities and government havemostly
been caught unaware and often they have been so overwhelmed by the allround
damages and destructions that it has taken quite some time for them to recoverfrom
the initial shocks and to plan and act in a coordinated manner, resulting
inconsiderable chaos and confusion not only among the decision makers but also
theemergency responders and other key stakeholders. Coordination among the
agenciesbecomes a casualty in a crisis situation which affects the relief and
reconstructionoperations.The disastrous consequences of an absence of a pre-
disaster contingency planhas been demonstrated repeatedly in many countries on a
number of occasions.Therefore, one of the most critical elements of cyclone risk
management is to have acontingency plan in readiness, which would clearly
delineate the roles andresponsibilities of various agencies within and outside the
government, define theexact functions to be performed by them, the process to be
followed in theperformance of these functions, the tools and equipments to be kept
in readiness,procurements to be made, evacuation drills to be followed, the
emergency medicalplan to be put in place etc. Such a contingency plan should be
prepared vertically atthe national, provincial, district and sub-district and
community level and horizontallyfor the different sectors police, civil defence,
health, fire services, food and civilsupplies, agriculture, fisheries, water supply,
roads and bridges and so on.Standard operating procedure should be laid down for
each activity to avoidany confusion and to ensure coordination among the various
agencies involved in theresponse, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction
programmes after the disasters. Suchcontingency plan should be reviewed
periodically to update them according tochanging situations and also to create
awareness among all the stakeholders. The bestway to keep the contingency plan in
readiness is to conduct mock drills at least oncein a year before the cyclone season
starts so that the operational difficulties inimplementation of the plan are sorted out
at the ground level and the various agencieswithin and outside the government can
work together in a coordinated and efficientmanner when the disaster would
actually strike. Such mock drills again should beconducted at various levels to
ensure operational readiness of the system.Even with all these mitigation and
preparatory measures in place the cycloneswould continue to strike the coastal
settlements and probably these would strike withmore frequencies and greater
intensities in future. Death, injuries and losses can nodoubt be reduced with better
preparedness and mitigation measures, but these can notbe avoided altogether. The
challenge would be how efficiently these damages aremanaged, how best the
affected people are rescued and provided relief andrehabilitation assistance in a
humane and transparent manner, how fast the damagedhouses and infrastructure
are reconstructed and how quickly the pre-disaster situationsare restored and
normal life bounces back to its rhythm. This would require a pre