Why Bother with Disaster Preparedness Plans When Nothing Will Happened

Introduction: Bijeljina is a city in north-eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina and with about 120,000-130,000 inhabitants it is fifth largest city in the country. It is located at 6 km from Drina-River which is the border of Serbia and 40 km from Sava-River – border with Croatia. Due to good quality of lowland Bijeljina is well-known regional-centre for production and trade of food.

 On 1^st December 2010 Bijeljina was affected with excessive flood, the largest one in last 100 years in this region which was caused by two reasons: Extremely increased rainfall in upper Drina flow (Montenegro) and inadequate reaction and bad management of hydroelectric power plants in both states.

 Aim: Aim of the paper to investigate effectiveness of the local disaster preparedness plans and inter-sectorial cooperation during the flood and propose recommendations for better preparations of the plan(s) and their implementation.

 Methods and materials: Descriptive – retrospective analysis was used in this research based on available data from civil and health sectors with accent on consequences of the flood on public-health of the population during the disaster (December 2010).

 Results: One fifth of the Bijeljina municipality was flooded (150km²). Massive water ruined infrastructure, cultivated-agricultural land, affected 869 households with 1618 objects with damaged recorded on buildings, household-equipment and machinery, animal-food, and fire woods. During the most critical period from 2^nd to 6^th of December over 2000 people were evacuated from their homes, as well as domestic animals.

Department for epidemiology and family-medicine carried out intensified surveillance for intestinal infections. Health Centre- Bijeljina recorded five cases of salmonellosis, only two from flooded area. 

 Conclusions: Fortunately, except huge material damage, flood has not made big harm on population health but this disaster revealed necessitate for updated disaster preparedness plans to include inter-sectorial cooperation of public-health sector with civil sector (industry/police/military), and municipality/entity/state authorities.