EAD unveils emergency centre

Inaugurated by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) on Sunday, the new centre has three emergency teams on stand by, ready to intervene in case of an environmental crisis or incidents.

“I am delighted to stand before you today to mark the official launch of EAD’s Emergency Operations Centre. We unveil this centre to you after months of hard work, which has resulted in it being marked as a major milestone of our overall emergency management preparedness plan,” said Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, secretary-general of EAD.

The centre has three emergency teams on stand by, ready to intervene in case of an environmental crisis or incident. — KT photo by Nezar Balout

Run by EAD, the new centre is the mandated scientific advisory entity to work with the UAE government authorities on all environment-related crises occurring in Abu Dhabi.

Supported by EAD’s Emergency Management Plan, EOC will also serve as a training centre to build emergency response capacities among EAD staff. In fact, all 400 EAD field staff will receive the basic emergency training.

EOC features a logistic room, a conference room, an operations room, a planning area and even a back up electricity room in case of a power cut. All three compartments are fully equipped with the latest communications technology, designated work areas for experts, data computing devices for information received from both in-house crisis management teams and on-field representatives.

“Our response to any crises is maximum one hour for Abu Dhabi island, two hours for Al Ain and the eastern region and three hours for the western region,” said Humaid Al Kindi, head of the emergency department at EAD.

Last year, EAD had over 30 emergency cases, including oil spills and algae bloom. Some of these cases are purely environmental and EAD handle them by itself, others involve human rescue and other issues that require the assistance of other Abu Dhabi government entities such as the Health Department, Police or Abu Dhabi national Oil Company.

EAD classifies crisis on three categories - complaints, incidents and emergencies.

In each case the level of the crises is from one to three.

“If the level is ‘one’, EAD has the capability of solving the matter alone; if it is level ‘two’, we require other entities’ cooperation and for level ‘three’ we go to federal support,” explained Al Kindi.

In case of a major emergency, the new EOC will become a meeting and operational hub for all emergency and rescue organisations involved.

“Since an emergency - whether it is an event or a series of major events which may cause serious damage to individuals and property or threaten the public order, human health, environment or the economy - involves the mobilisation and coordination of several stakeholders - knowing that the emergency may be relatively expected or totally unexpected - the response requires the presence of fundamental elements, primarily planning, preparedness and the necessary expertise and techniques to be up to the level of the incident and to be able to mitigate the impact on lives and property,” pointed out Mohammed Khalfan Al Rumaithi, director-general of the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority.

Environmental crisis may be reported through the Abu Dhabi government emergency number - 800555. —silvia@khaleejtimes.com