Better disaster aid coordination their aim

GEORGE NEWS - An initiative to ensure that the logistics of aid distribution during natural disasters in the George area are properly coordinated through one central point was announced on Tuesday at the Garden Route District Municipality's (GRDM) joint operations centre (Joc).

The initiative has been dubbed George Alert Team (Gat) by the two main figures behind the idea, Herman Pienaar, administrator of the Facebook group Georgiete Staan Saam, and Pieter Nel, first vice-district governor of the Lions.

Nel says the idea is to avoid duplicating donations and ensure better control over and more effective distribution of aid. "Georgians love to give and assist, and during the fires in George last year, a lot of food and water that was donated went to waste because there was no coordination. Sometimes impractical and inappropriate foodstuffs were given."

When the Joc of the GRDM is activated during a disaster, Gat will set up an incident command centre from where all donations and aid will be coordinated, relieving authorities' task.

Pienaar says the recently created, free app "Love George" will be a means of feeding the public with information regarding requirements for aid at the different stages of a disaster.

"When for example a church or business wants to supply meals or water to the disaster teams, they will contact the incident command centre for information to determine what is needed. We can then also direct them to a specific area where there is a specific need for what they have to offer. We will share only official information from the Joc on the Love George app and social media. This should help limit fake news, which has been a problem in the past."

Pienaar wants to start preparing the public through the Love George app on what types of donations are appropriate and how the coordinated efforts will work.

According to Nel, a permanent storage area where redundant donations are being kept and distributed as needed, also with the help of the Social Development Department, has already been set up.

GRDM disaster management coordinator Wouter Jacobs says there is a definite need for better coordination of aid efforts.

"In February this year I received a call from someone who said he wanted his storage facility back - it was filled with water donations from the fire of last year. This should not happen."