Retired military senior staff may
not be the first actor group that comes
to mind when thinking of flood risk management. But recently, an interesting example
was mentioned by the Environment Agency. In England, the Environment Agency
assists communities in setting up local measures to enhance their capacity to
deal with floods. For example, constructing a flood gate or raising a dike. The
Environment Agency assists in the initial stage, to set up and plan
construction the measures. After that, the community has to able to deal with activating
the measure themselves in case of an actual flood risk. Also inspection and maintenance
has to be done by the community themselves.
And this is where the retired
military staff comes in. The Environment Agency indicated that former senior military
staff have shown to play a successful role in local flood risk resilience. That
is, because they are used to do regular thorough inspections and stay alert for
events which may not happen often but which may have severe consequences, because
they are trained taking the lead in a hectic complex situation, and because
they accept leadership from other flood authorities, if these would come in and
take over in a situation. Also, the Ministry of Defence appears to be interested
in connecting their former staff to new functions and roles in society. So, retired
military staff may not be the immediate group you would think of in flood risk
management, but they could play a role; I wonder if that could also work out in
other countries in a similar way as in England.
