The National Disaster Management Centre says there is a need for better co-ordination between it and municipalities to enhance SA’s disaster response, as weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable partly due to climate change.
Climate change events are becoming more frequent and more severe, evident in the recent storms that lashed four provinces and prompted the declaration of regional states of disaster.
In September, tollways linking Johannesburg and Durban were thrown into chaos when road users were left trapped in heavy snow. Hundreds of motorists were stranded and one person died of hypothermia after icy conditions, wet weather and poor visibility affected parts of the country including KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Eastern Cape.
Despite early warnings, challenges arose due to public behaviour and inadequate local mitigation measures, said National Disaster Management Centre manager Dechlan Liech Pillay.
“The early warnings are provided, but there are no actions linked to the warning from a broad response perspective. So, in the ideal world, what would have happened is the local municipalities that received the seasonal outlook with the hazard profile for snow would have immediately gauged that we are going to have sporadic snow events, during this period until we get to a certain time of the summer, and then put into place certain contingency measures and activities that they needed perform,” he said during a roundtable discussion on SA’s early warning weather systems.
Pillay added municipalities should implement an incident management system to streamline the disaster response process including the identification of evacuation sites and the mobilisation of resources such as the SA National Defence Force and aviation.
The centre is finalising a national report and creating a road map for improving early warning systems across different pillars.
“We’ve just finalised the national report in draft format, and looking at creating the road map for us to function with other international countries to improve the early warning system across the four pillars, and we hopefully going to receive much success in terms of that as we try to improve the early warnings messages to mitigate the disastrous severe weather,” he said.
Senior weather forecaster at the SA Weather Service Puseletso Mofokeng says it’s not always possible to issue weather warning services well in advance because of the unpredictable weather patterns.
“We can only extend by tens of minutes, not by an hour or date; that is not possible,” he said.
Meteorologist Annette Botha suggested enhancing public education on impact-based warnings and proposed a national ambassador initiative to boost community preparedness for disasters.
“We all know that early warning is only as effective as the public’s ability to act upon it,” she said.
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