Cross-Border Risks in the Baltic Sea Region: Lessons to ... - Helsinki.fi

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shows that during emergency situations one
has to be prepared for unexpected development.
It is a challenge to include this aspect
in training or exercises.
During emergency situations there is a
great need for information. Therefore media
training is crucial for the persons responsible
for communicating the events of the incident.
Lack of information or distribution of
incorrect information can have severe consequences
and also cause additional problems,
i.e. distrust.
Another challenge is to train volunteers,
so they can be used as a resource. In
Kaliningrad and Finland volunteers are
trained. Other countries around the Baltic
Sea can learn from their experiences.
For training and exercises it is also important
to consider how to use "lessons learned"
from emergency situations in the Baltic Sea
Region. One suggestion here is to establish a
web portal on Internet, where experiences
could be gathered. To be able to learn from
previous emergency situations it is also
important to document the incident. In the
future, it must be discussed and decided
which requirements are necessary for documentation
of actions and their evaluation.
6. Recommendations
The already staggering monetary
losses from disasters are still
increasing. This should be seen as a
possibility of convincing policymakers
and planners of the need to base
community planning on comprehensive
risk assessment and to establish
cross-sectoral and cross-border
risk management mechanisms.
In many cross-border risks, the mitigation
activities mean simply postponing
losses that will be more catastrophic
when they finally occur.
There should be more focus on the
effects of prevention and mitigation
activities, not their magnitude and visibility
(such as costly but politically
visible awareness raising campaigns).
The Baltic Sea Region should be
seen as a potential area for the
European-scale pilot project for efficient
112-cross-border cooperation.
The pilot project should include a
feasibility study of the benefits of
establishing a single 112-control
centre to clear the 112-calls from various
countries, and to optimise the
national emergency response
capacities to each particular accident
and emergency in an appropriate
manner. The aim of the project would
be to serve the BSR citizens with
their own language regardless of
where they are located.
Flooding: A lesson learned from flooing
was that electric power systems
must always be protected from flooding,
i.e. there needs to be a plan
where to locate transformer stations.
Also the construction of water
pipelines must be adapted to the risk
of flooding. An increased cooperation
between water companies at local,
district and regional scale is also
needed. Also a well developed crisis
management and planning is necessary.