Defence and security training is needed to familiarize municipal leaders with the tasks of the regional and local defence committees and the disaster management. Péter Kiss, Lieutenant Colonel, Civil Protection Supervisor of the Szombathely Disaster Management Office, gave a presentation on the tasks of the Vas County Disaster Management Directorate in the Interreg Central Europe LOCALIENCE project.
Special emphasis was placed on the major damage events of the past period, related to extreme weather conditions.
In June 2024, Vas County was hit by a cyclone, which caused a significant rise in the water level of the Pinka stream and several houses were flooded. The sudden heavy rainfall was followed by gale-force winds, so in addition to flood protection, storm damage clearance was also a task. In those days, the fire brigades of Vas County have been called upon more than a hundred times to help with mitigating the damages. Most of the alarms were received from Narda, Felsőcsatár, Szentpéterfa, Pornóapáti and Horvátlövő settlements. For this reason, the Directorate’s role and objective in the LOCALIENCE project is to develop resilience to hazards coming from extreme weather events at local level.