A stone hand-painted with yellow stripes simulating water levels was the method Aidé Sánchez and her neighbors in San Antonio de Prado used to know if the creek near their house posed a risk during the rains.

“For us this stone was a kind of alarm, when it reached the first small line it was assumed that the creek was overgrown. In the second it was already more alert and in the third or fourth it was up to us with whistles or shouts to warn the community to leave”, says Aidé about this archaic procedure.

Fortunately, Aidé and her people exchanged panicked screams for management plans. Now they are part of 26 communities in the Aburrá Valley that have technological equipment and social support from the Metropolitan Area that allows them to be better prepared for an emergency and take care of their lives.

The change is very important for us, to replace a painted stone with sensors and an audible alarm, which will alert us better and more accurately when we should act”.

Aidé Sánchez

Speaking about risk management in the territory is to speak of the leading role played by the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley which, due to its genesis, is an entity that brings together the 10 municipalities that comprise it to promote and lead the promotion of effective development strategies and solid regional processes based on governance.

For Juan David Palacio Cardona, director of the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley, risk management is “having the capacity and the ability to respond to those episodes that affect the quality of life of citizens, that put life at risk and that also the territory suffers additional pressures such as losing competitiveness. What must be done is precisely to avoid the materialization of risks or, failing that, when they do materialize, to have the capacity to deal with these episodes”.

From the entity’s general budget, USD 3 to 4 million are prioritized annually for the development of hazard mitigation and vulnerability reduction activities for the nearly 4.200.000 inhabitants of the Aburrá Valley. Measures such as monitoring of critical points, identification of vulnerable sites, micro-zoning, and the definition and implementation of warning and evacuation plans, among others, have made it possible to reduce or neutralize the impact of natural disasters related to heavy rains, earthquakes, winds or extreme heat waves resulting from global warming and climate change.

“In the Metropolitan Area through our technical team and our SIATA project, we have generated science, technology and innovation to identify risk points in the territory. We built sensors that allow us to make measurements, but none of this is achieved if we do not have an articulated work with the community”, expressed Palacio.

The Early Warning System of the Aburrá Valley – SIATA, is a regional strategy implemented more than 11 years ago that seeks to identify and forecast the occurrence of natural and anthropic phenomena that alter the environmental conditions of the region or that may generate risks to the population. Its main tasks include 24/7 monitoring of environmental variables, technological development and innovation, hydrological and meteorological modeling adjusted to the territory, educational processes, and community early warning systems.

It is precisely the community work that we do, which makes the communities understand, take ownership, but also assume certain roles and this is precisely one of our differentiators in the process: the combination of technology and the appropriation of citizenship”.

added the director of the Metropolitan Area

Technology and training

Luz María Acevedo, community leader and inhabitant of La Asunción neighborhood in the municipality of Copacabana talks about her experience after enduring, in 2018, the overflowing of the creek that borders the residential unit where she lives. “At that time, it rained a lot, and the creek began to rise. The water pressure knocked down the wall and entered the residential unit affecting 127 families. The losses were in the millions but thank God we had no loss of life. It was shocking to see how the water swept away vehicles and motorcycles. In 10 seconds, the water was up to your waist“, she indicated.  

After this event, the community submitted a request for support to the Metropolitan Area and began actions for the installation of an audible alarm that measures the growth of the creek to support evacuation efforts hand in hand with the social process and response agencies. “The early warning system was very beneficial for the community in many aspects: education, attention and support. They prepared us to face the moments when it rains; now we know how to proceed and that there is a meeting point; we have an alarm and a camera that we can monitor through the internet, everything is very easy with what they have taught us, and this helps us a lot to have some peace of mind” asserted Luz.

Desde la Orilla Program – First episode: Testimony of Luz María Acevedo

The Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area stands out not only for being an entity that contemplates risk in an integral way through its programs associated with the prevention and management of the different risks to which the territory and its population are exposed, but it is also a good governmental practice because it has a high component of participation, empowerment and training of different actors: the governments of the municipalities that comprise it; public and private companies in relation to their social and corporate responsibility policies; the community (groups of children-youth and adults) as agents of change; the scientific community and its advances; the traditional and emerging media through an articulated system of dissemination; emergency response agencies, such as the fire departments, among others.

Although risk management in the territory has been positively transformed in the last 15 years, it is indisputable that it is an arduous task and that it would not be what it is today without the work carried out by the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley, which under its vision of Sustainable Future, is aligned with the priorities of the 2030 Agenda and the Sendai Framework: understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance for better management; investing in disaster risk reduction for greater resilience; and increasing disaster preparedness to better respond to disasters and for better recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

The benefit of early warnings for me was a blessing, and also for the whole community. I will always be very grateful to SIATA because they taught us to overcome fear and we know that if that alarm sounds it is because we are in danger, in great danger and we must get out”.

words of Flor del Socorro Obando, community leader of La Playita sector in Medellín.

Desde la Orilla Program – Eighth episode: Testimony of Flor del Socorro Obando