THE Civil Defence Commission (CDC) in conjunction with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will be hosting a simulation exercise entitled ‘Floodgate 2012’ on Guyana’s National Risk Management Plan on July 12-13. Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Office of the President yesterday said that this activity will be at the CDC Headquarter, Thomas Lands and the Region 3, Regional Democratic Council (RDC) Office in Vreed-en-Hoop.
This exercise would be in response to floods at both the regional and national level; testing a number of disaster risk management mechanisms, which are laid out in policies, adopted by the Administration and implemented by the CDC and related bodies.
These mechanisms include: the flood preparation and response plans, damage assessment and needs analysis plan, policies and framework, early warning system, and land, air and sea search and rescue plan.
The simulation exercise evolved over three phases; the first deals with the rising levels in the drainage and irrigation system where specifically, the warning systems and their applications would be tested as well as the flood preparation and response plans.
Phase two deals with rainfall over-topping and flooding of communities and agricultural lands; while the third phase deals with recovery.
The intention of this exercise is to test and rehearse the implementation of these disaster risk mechanisms in the face of the fairly common, seasonal flooding that occurs in Guyana.