Aarón Palomo Euán, director of the Civil Protection Unit of the state government, warns that nowadays there are more risks of disasters in Yucatan, as a consequence of demographic growth and urban zone expansion.
For this reason, he says that it is necessary to regionalize the agency so that it can work better and faster, in taking preventive and operative measures for the inland and coastal zones of the State of Yucatan.
Regionalization requires state-of-the-art radio communication technology, the creation of the Yucatan disaster prevention center, linking protocols to 911 so that civil protection authorities can act with greater certainty, because the current protocols are more related to firefighters than to civil protection staff.
In addition, the official recalls that when he took office, this governmental dependency was smaller and mainly focused on cyclones and fires.
However, today Yucatán’s Civil Protection carries out a wide array of actions, including awareness-raising and educactional campaigns, collaboration with civil society through business chambers, supervision of day-care centers, mass events and pyrotechnics, among many others.
Nowadays, Civil Protection also participates in health campaigns such as fighting the aedes aegypti mosquito, they intervene in spills of hazardous chemical materials, and of course, the take care of their traditional activities of prevention and eviction of the population in case of hurricanes, forest fires, floodings or hailstorms.
And the new Atlas of Risks of Natural Disasters includes protocols in case of earthquakes, although these are not very frequent in Yucatan, it is not ruled out that these type of natural phenomenoms may occur in the future, taking in consideration that on September 7, 2017, a tremor was felt in Mérida and other parts of the state.
“During governor Rolando Zapata’s administration, Civil Protection became important among the Yucatecans, who are learning to coexist with prevention and order, and how to deal with affectations and have a fast recovery”, pointed out Dr. Palomo Euán, during an interview within the framework of the National Day of Civil Protection that took place on Wednesday Sep. 19 in Mérida’s Plaza Grande.
“There is no doubt that the culture of prevention and civil protection is consolidated in Yucatan, as the population is respecting the norms, recommendations and information issued by the meteorological bulletins”, Palomo Euán continued.
Finally, the director of the Civil Protection Unit stated: “the creation of the 911 emergency number speeds up the reports because in case of fires they receive up to 10 calls from the same incident and there is an inter-institutional coordination and collaboration to address emergencies (Army, Navy, State and Municipal Police, Red Cross brigades, Water Commission and Firefighters)”.
TYT Newsroom with information from yucatan.com.mx
