February 1, 2003
 
 

Global Flooding

Last year central Europe experienced devastating floods.  Members of the AIHA International Affairs Committee organized an Trans-Atlantic videoconference last month to offer technical assistance to people in the Czech Republic.

The milestone event hosted by the University of Indiana involved six universities in the United States, Canada and the Czech Republic.

Fighting floods can be overwhelming.  As a result many lessons learned are often lost.  And these “small details” may have helped win the battle.

For example: Central Canada flooded in 1997.  Tremendous thought went into cleanup measures.  Not factored in were people looking for cheap deals at garbage dumps.  They would take home contaminated material, undermining the community health safety plan.

One suggestion that came out of the videoconference was to establish a Global Flood Community to share ‘small details’ that may have an enormous impact.  A Global Flood Community (GFC) would insure what is learned is not lost.

A follow-up videoconference is scheduled for March 20, 2003.

AIHA members will continue to share information on flood related health issues such as mold with people in the Czech Republic.  Members are also offering expertise in cleaning rare books damaged in flooded libraries and searching for resources to replace those lost entirely.

You may join the discussions on the Flood_Relief_Aid_2002 List on Yahoo Groups. To view the archived January 16th videoconference using RealPlayer go to: http://video.indiana.edu:8080/ramgen/vic/czech_flooding_20030116.rm site.

Andrew Cutz, CIH
Chair (2002), AIHA International Affairs Committee
Moderator, Flood_Relief_Aid_2002 List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flood_relief_aid_2002
eMail: 627788@...

"Think Globally, Act Locally"
 
 

Reference URL:

Flood Relief Aid 2002 Website  (NEW)
http://www.aiha.org/Committees/html/iac-flood02.htm