In the flood season of 2022, in Shaanxi was lashed by multiple rounds of heavy rain, which damaged farmland dykes, cut off roads and destroyed infrastructure, affecting as many as 582,600 people.

It is worth mentioning that "dual 2 mechanisms plus 5 measures" disaster prevention and mitigation mechanism (hereafter referred to as the mechanism) of Shangluo guided by meteorological forecasting and early warning coped with the rainstorm, and meteorological departments released early warning and governments at all levels responded immediately. Various sectors reinforced coordination and the people managed to timely evacuate.

The mechanism is characterized by normalizing two mechanisms, enhancing 5 kinds of capacities, taking 2 preventive measures, and implementing 5 measures on a regular basis. To be specific, two mechanism refer to, firstly in the case that local governments receive the early warning information of meteorological departments and promptly organize evacuation work, secondly, normalizing the mechanism of conducting extreme weather drill.

In the flood season of 2022, Shangluo municipal government organized and carried out a host of extreme weather prevention drills at the city, county, town and village levels, with a total of about 450 thousand people engaged, which has established and improved the normalized extreme weather drill mechanism.

Enhancing 5 kinds of capacities refers to boosting early warning and forecasting capacity, emergency command capacity, response capacity on a regular basis, rescue and relief capacity, and post-disaster reconstruction capacity.

Taking 2 preventive measures means when extreme heavy rain is projected to trigger flooding hazards, the evacuation of people 2 hours in advance wasorganized and will be transfered to the high-lying safety zone (disaster shelter); vehicles in low-lying areas prone to flooding, for instance, underground garages, will be transferred four hours in advance .

Implementing 5 measures on a regular basis refers to preparing flood control emergency response supplies, for example, sandbags and dampers in underground areas; paying special attention to certain population, vehicles, and key locations; reserving rescue and relief teams and supplies; conducting increasingly accurate meteorological information consultation and judgment; and organizing real-time drills in an orderly manner.

The mechanism is guided by meteorological early warning, featured by the government departments leading decision-making, the joint coordination and response among multiple sectors, and high social participation. The mechanism has been effectively tested many times in grappling with extreme weather events in Shangluo.

In the flood season of 2022, there were 15 heavy rain processes in Shangluo, and there were no casualties as a result of meteorological disasters. This is attributed to giving full play to the role of the mechanism at the municipal, county, and town level in daily operations and in special cases. The mechanism embodies advanced experience of links from the establishment of the mechanism to responsibility implementation.

The mechanism boasts sufficient good experience in mechanism establishment, action and response and responsibility implementation.

First, as for establishment of mechanism, it is important to take initiative to shift from response to prevention. Regular emergency work should be conducted to boost people’s ability to evade emergencies and the emergency handling capacity of various departments.

Second, in terms of action, it is crucial to normalize emergency response. Meteorological early warning should be harnessed to study and judge disasters in advance. Work like implementing 5 measures on a regular basis should be carried out to evacuate people and vehicles in advance.

Third, as regards implementation of responsibilities, the evacuation of people should reinforce responsibility by taking proactive action.

Editor: LIU Shuqiao