There is nothing much wrong with NADMO once we agree to change the name to reflect what it actually does. Let us agree to call it the National Disaster-AFTER Management Organisation; we don't even need to change the acronym. Sticking "AFTER" into the name will do two things: properly describe what the organisation tries to do, and lower our expectations about a largely ineffective organisation. I have thought a lot lately about disaster management in general and NADMO in particular. Our disaster management organisation appears to be something of a disaster, or at best, has become the excuse for doing-nothing much about disasters in the country. Along with hundreds of thousands of Accra residents, I was caught in last Sunday's storm which led to severe floods in several parts of the capital. There was a one hour period during the storm when I feared for the worst. My mind went to China and Burma, two Asian nations which have suffered two catastrophes recently. More than 133,000 people died or disappeared in the Burmese cyclone which occurred nearly four weeks ago, while more than 40,000 souls perished in the earthquake that hit China nearly three weeks ago. The two situations evoked two different and contradictory responses: China, which once would have sealed the country to external aid, this time accepted assistance from all over the world, including the US and the EU. On the other hand, the paranoid military junta in Rangoon, the Burmese capital, behaved according to type and sealed the country until external pressure prised the hermetic dictatorship slightly open for aid to get through. How would Ghana react if any such disaster struck this country? Of the two situations China came out much better, not only in the eyes of international public opinion, but in rescuing, saving and comforting its citizens. Even Burma, which refused international aid, deployed maximum internal assistance, even if it was not enough. At the beginning of this week, there were two huge fire outbreaks in two world cities: The world renowned Philharmonic Hall in Berlin Germany and an office block caught fire in Brazilia, Brazil's largest city. In both cases, the efficiency of the fire fighting and rescue belied the enormity of the task that faced their respective fire and rescue services. Let us think about what Ghana would do in the face of similar disaster. For answer, let us look at what happened last Sunday. To begin with, the storm was forecast by the Meteorological Service the day before, and even for a public grown sceptical by the Meteor's less than reliable forecasts, could see the rain clouds as clearly as NADMO officials must have done. Once the rain started it became clear -within the first half hour that this was no run of the mill rain but a massive and torrential downpour that would result in flooding. Given that Accra's low lying parts are so flood prone and its sewage system abused by human behaviour and official neglect, any self-respecting disaster management organisation would have been on the streets within an hour of the downpour. I was caught in the storm on the Spintex Road, Ghana's most benighted and accursed piece of land, and as can be expected, there were chaotic scenes on a road that even in normal times defies logic and science. On Sunday night, although it was all disorganised it was neither frenzied nor frantic. There was a resigned air hanging above all of us stranded travellers, as if to say: "this is Spintex, what can you expect?” I suspect that the real reason for the subdued chaos on the Spintex Road was because we knew, deep down that we were better than say, Alajo and Dzorwulu. Radio stations did their best to alert NADMO to go to places where the folding was getting out of hand. There was a particular SOS to NADMO by a number of radio stations to rush to the La Hotel area (close to the President's home) where floodwaters were beginning to sweep some vehicles off the roads. I don't know if NADMO responded to any of these SOS calls, but I doubt it. I find the SOS calls from radio stations to NADMO quite bizarre; in a well-organised system, NADMO would be the organisation that would use radio to warn and guide Ghanaians in the event of disaster. In this land where "ambulances" are used to ferry the dead while taxis struggle to take the sick through thick and uncaring traffic, it is no surprise that it is radio that warns our primary disaster management organisation about disasters. That is the way things "work" in this country and we have come to accept that as a way of life. But it should not be like that. On Tuesday, Parliament took the first step by debating disaster management in the House in the context of consoling China. However as we know, a debate, even one initiated by the government would be meaningless without government cash backing any new ideas. But the recent high profile disasters in many parts of the world must exercise our faculties to the point of doing something concrete about disasters. At the moment, what passes for disaster management in Ghana is a sickly joke. And, I am not blaming NADMO, which as I have already pointed out is only an excuse for doing nothing. Furthermore, we have to understand that NADMO is not the problem. An organisation that is not sufficiently resourced cannot be expected to do much more than issue warnings and threats. NADMO as an organisation is not sufficient at present to cope with disaster at even the minimum level. That does not mean that the idea of disaster management is bad per se. What we need to do is to conceptualise disaster management on a scale that goes beyond the responsibility of a single organisation. NADMO's role must be only that of a proactive coordinating agency while all the security, emergency and medical services must be conscripted into disaster management. In some parts of the world, the army, police, air force, navy, fire service, St John's Ambulance, the Red Cross and all other such institutions and organisations would have been out last Sunday night to help the citizens whose money pay their salaries to get home safely. But this is not the Ghana way. Here, as the storm raged with lightning flashes and thunder galore, I felt very sorry for women, children and the aged who had been abandoned to make their own way home while our security service personnel, who are well trained to help, were not called out. The problem goes deeper than NADMO or the institutional steep for dealing with disaster. It begins and ends with the way disaster management is conceived. At the moment, the government is adopting a fragmented civil service kind of response, which must find a pigeon hole in which to put every issue. That is a disastrous way to think of disaster management. Source: Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng/The Mirror gapenteng@hotmail.com