Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin ordered the Investigation Committee of Russia to probe officials' actions during the flooding in the Krasnodar Territory by July 23 and to inform the population about the results.
Nikolai Kondratenko, member of the Federation Council Committee on Agricultural and Commodity Policy and Environmental Management
Remember the flooding in 2002 on the Kuban River when 200 people died in the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories. The tragedy was great. It was a shameful flooding. I had been working with the Kuban basin management for 20 years. I know quite well all hydraulic structures and the coordination of population’s saving from flooding. Of course there was a man-caused factor in the flooding 2002. The basin management was destroyed. If it is Soviet, it is wrong, we will destroy it. In fact it was a very reasonable structure. All hydraulic engineering structures in the Stavropol Territory, the Krasnodar Territory, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Adygea were at the balance of the Kuban basin management. It was situated in Krasnodar because flooding forms at the top, but lower areas suffer most of all. The basin management dealt with the whole complex of issues: avoiding of flooding, melioration, rice growing, shipping on the Kuban River, drinking water issues, and fishing. Along with the main question of avoiding flooding a complex of economic tasks had been settled. But later hydraulic structures, reservoir storages, and hydraulic systems were given to regions (Karachay-Cherkessia took its own part, the Stavropol Territory – its own, Adygea – its own, the Krasnodar Territory took what was left), it was a disaster. The management was lost.
The main economic sense began to appear in the regions. Reservoirs began to be filled earlier than they should be: only when it is high water they can be filled because water should go low to avoid flooding, to save people. Some decided melioration issues, others rented places for fishery, and so on. And security interests of people began to suffer. Then the flooding happened in 2002.
The Black Sea nature worsened the situation. When I rested on the Black Sea, I saw black belches in the horizon, waterspouts, on stormy days. Everybody knew that it was a belch and it would come to the surface, and a disaster would happen. A great amount of water is poured on a narrow small area, like in Krymsk. The old deputies of the Territory Council spent night there; they counted square, water depth, and amount of water. It was difficult to imagine how so great volume of water could be poured from the sky. It is impossible to define now whether it was rain or waterspout, and it is not my business. Hydrometeorology should do it. Therefore, development of all other measures should rely on the state program on saving people from this phenomenon. They used to be previously, but in a smaller scale. And know they appear frequently and destroying power is growing. How can people be protected in this situation?
A strict program is needed: to give clear information on appearance, and then people can be evacuated, sirens can be turned on, and you can shout for the whole town.
Yuri Kalinin, member of the Federation Council Committee on Budget, Regulations and Organization of Parliamentary Activity
We need new technologies, new alarming systems. We need a new system of training citizens for such situations because people living in a risk area cannot be fully protected from nature disasters. They should be trained. The system was destroyed. However, in 1994 the Federal Law 68 On Protection of Population and Territories from Emergency Situations Appeared due to Natural Cataclysms and Man-Caused Situations was adopted. Everything is well written in the law – rules, duties of regional and municipal administrations, issues which they have to deal with ahead of the situation, during the situation and after it.
Along with positive aspects we saw drawbacks, ignoring the law which obliged to settle this or that problem. The law also requires certain duties for a citizen living in the territory: that he has to be prepared, he has to be trained.
We should think about support of volunteers. We should systematize and legally settle all rights and social relations appeared during volunteers work. It is great that people come, but they should know clearly what they should expect, what right they have, and what duties administrations which work with them have. Moreover, security of a volunteer – health care insurance because a person is at risk to get injure or get sick in the area of an emergency situation. Such laws are adopted in Moldova, they are being developed in Tajikistan, Belarus, and are implemented in the world. In many countries of Europe and the US when a person who participated in a volunteer movement want to employ, he or she has greater chances.
At the same time, rascals always try to muscle in on such positive movements and use the situation in their own interests: marauders, alarmists. Right before our arrival there was an attempt to raise people – somebody shouted that reservoir’s dams collapsed and the wave was coming, and everybody would die. We stopped people applying great efforts. Some people use the situation in political and criminal interests. There must be criminal punishment for such behavior. Today Criminal Code requires responsibility for fake messages on terrorism and terrorist attacks. The 207th article of Criminal code should be added by responsibility for such alarmist statements.
Dmitry Aleshkovsky, coordinator of the collecting and sending center of humanitarian support in the Vorobyovy Hills
There is no complete statistics. I know that a small group cleared 41 houses from wrecks in 3 days and provided 157 points with humanitarian support, i.e. 157 families. What was interesting in our work? First of all, our support was separated from the Emergency Ministry’s help. I mean it was parallel. We directly helped victims. Everyday we composed a new list of what we needed. We received them from our volunteers who lived there. Everyday when we gathered stuff, we posted information in Twitter, Facebook, and the mass media, which helped us a lot, on what we needed.
Nobody remained indifferent. We are an absolutely apolitical group. We do not represent any political party. I was asked: who stands behind you? Nobody stands behind me. We are you. We are common people. It was pleasure to see how Special Forces came to load our vans and guys with white stripes, guys from Yong Russia, bikers, Christian activists helped them… These are people who cannot be united except for a common tragedy. And it shows that people still have a chance to love, happiness, and mutual joy. I cannot remember a situation when our society has been so consolidated. It was one of the happiest days in my life, and not only mine.
As for the law on volunteers, I think this law is needless. I don’t believe that some bureaucratic obstacles will help us, volunteers, to work. We settle problems very quickly, and additional bureaucratic tasks we would have to fulfill – reports, registration, contracts, and so on – will kill our work. We couldn’t work because couldn’t send, for example, 100 people there who need insurance. Yes, they come there at their own risk. Yes, many of them are not vaccinated. Yes, many of them could get sick. But we cannot deal with their insurance here because we have no time for that, we have no money for that. People understand perfectly all risks. We cannot sign a contract with them because we have no lawyer. We are people who collected money and other resources and sent a bus there without official documents, and there were no problems with it because the police understood what business we did. All these bureaucratic obstacles will disturb us only.
We need a structure that would coordinate the work of volunteers and the state. It is a useful initiative because at the moment we see great discoordination. Recently I have received a letter: “There are two tons of construction load.” But I cannot send it. I have phoned to various generals, and they don’t let us to send the load. They can take it and store it, but they cannot make it work tomorrow, for example. We need real-time coordination, just like our work. Of course we understand how and where to give food, water, clothes, and similar things. But ten tons of brick… We want the municipal administration to help us. It is very important.
