Disaster Management Case Study

Communication is an important part of every aspect of life and particularly important for disaster management to give the right message to the public. Knowing what, when, who and how to say it can go a long way. Timely disaster alerts could have saved many lives in the recent Chennai floods.

"Act of God" or “Folly of Man"

While the "El Nino" talks took place in Paris, Tamil Nadu capital Chennai had witnessed its worst floods in 104 years. Life for 5 million people came to a sudden halt, at least 500 feared dead and many more missing. It was total mayhem as communications, infrastructure and rescue operations caused weeks of agony and anguish to Chennaites. Many smaller outskirt towns especially those along the coastline were neither spared

Unfortunately, people’s lax weather forecast attitude and ill- prepared disaster management PWD team were yet another shortcoming. The continuous greater inflow than outflow of heavy rainfall wasn 't closely monitored. Failure to follow SOP to release water in stages caused low-lying areas to be quickly flooded on the fateful night, Dec 1, 2015. Again the untimely opening of the sluice floodgates was big miscalculation of the city 's water management engineers.

Aerial view of Chennai was like a cluster of islands the next morning and many houses swept away or under 12-14 feet water. Most ground level houses, shops, carparks were affected and damaged. Rescuers had to use fishing boats to save people from unreachable areas. Red-Alert information was not communicated to public via television broadcast or siren warning.

Slow reaction of government officials to declare a curfew and clear unnecessary traffic for rescue mission made it worse. Lack of communication and co-ordination among NGOs, complacent government officials (red tape), rescue agencies and delayed Army involvement further complicated

Businesses and Chennai IT companies which were hardest hit had relocated to other cities due to power outage and communication breakdown. The Indian economy fell through an estimated 75 Cores in one day.

Benefits of improved communication

The aftermath of the floods exposed the gaping loopholes in the National Disaster Management Team. Irreparable devastating damage to property, infrastructure, utilities and economy requiring huge costs could otherwise have been used for people 's welfare.

Before the floods:

Based on past experience the government did not take preventive measures to provide more bunds, weirs, levees, raised dams and sumps for the public. “Prevention is better than cure", saw the non-existence of a proactive communication channel among concerned parties-- government, PWD, Metrological Department, municipal