The various fire service organisations in the region have a serious role to play in emergency disaster management and must ready themselves for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.
Director of Emergency Services, Judy Thomas, noted recently that the fire services were an integral part of the national response capacity and this emerging role would become more relevant with the region's hosting of CWC 2007. One example of this is in providing safety through mass crowd management.
Thomas said, "There is going to be a new role in terms of the safety aspect of central emergency services." Therefore, she believed that fire services needed to reposition themselves and change their thinking to be ready. She suggested the incorporation of emergency response functions in the training of fire officers to include evacuation, safety, mass care, et cetera. In addition, Thomas wanted to see a stronger link between the fire services and the communities that they serve.
She was speaking at the closing ceremony of a training course in search and rescue for 21 people from 15 different Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) member states. During the course, participants were trained in a number of search and rescue techniques with specific attention on collapsed structures. This training was expected to be invaluable during earthquakes as well as next year's CWC. The participants will now take their training back to their home countries and in turn train members of their national search and rescue teams.
Coordinator of CDERA, Jeremy Collymore, noted that the institutional framework for disaster management was missing a capacity to provide effective search and rescue on land. This was especially crucial when related to earthquakes, which affect many of the CDERA member states. He added, Indeed as we seek to prepare for 2007 World Cup, the issue of search and rescue and critical mass care is coming to forefront. We believe that this training has been very timely in developing that important capacity.
Collymore also stressed that more investment was needed in preparing nation teams. "We hold very truly to the idea that the strength of each one of the national search and rescue systems determines the capacity of the regional response mechanism. It is in that regard that we are proposing to take this process to another level; we will want to work with the fire-fighter associations and training institutions in the Caribbean to ensure that these products become available for regular scheduled training." He then called on the countries represented to make the participants available for more training in the future.
Chief Fire Officer, Chesterfield Mayers, noted that the training will in the short-term serve invaluable during CWC 2007, but stressed that as we prepare for this event we are building capacity economically and socially, we are strengthening our institutions, upgrading existing attractions, and putting in new infrastructure. It is fair to say that CWC will come and go, and leave all the structures and systems I have just referred to, therefore the training you have just received will ensure that adequate and appropriate responses can and will be made long after CWC climaxes. |