Officials visit from tsunami-hit regions-OrlandoSentinel

Officials visit from tsunami-hit regions

-Ludmilla Lelis

On Dec. 26, 2004, the day the tsunami struck in the Indian Ocean, he first had to save himself and his family from the massive wave that quickly engulfed his hotel at a seaside resort in India.

As the waters from the Bay of Bengal rose to his shoulders, Gagandeep Singh Bedi ran for higher ground, clutching his young daughter in his arms.

"The force of the tsunami was broken by the hotel. Had it not been for that, I could have been lost to the sea," he said Wednesday.

Then Bedi had to help save his community. As the "collector," the most powerful government official in his coastal district, Bedi rushed back to work to mobilize the police, the medical teams and other government workers for the biggest disaster the Cuddalore district had ever seen.

This week, Bedi visited Port Orange as part of a delegation of Indian government officials hoping to learn from their American counterparts how to prepare for a future calamity and rebuild their homeland.

Two Indian groups are touring Central Florida through the CityLinks program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and organized through the International City/County Management Association.

To help Indian cities rebuild from the tsunami's devastation, the program sets up an exchange between government officials at the local levels to share ideas and information.

A Florida delegation in July visited the Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts, both in the state of Tamil Nadu, and the Indian delegations are visiting Port Orange and Palm Bay this week.

"It's a technical and intellectual exchange of information and ideas," explained Donna Steinebach, assistant to the city manager in Port Orange, who traveled to Cuddalore last year. "It's been very encouraging to see the level of commitment of the officials involved in the exchange. They are so eager to find ways to help their community," she said.

The Cuddalore district, with 2.3 million people, was hit hard by the tsunami: 638 people dead; 29,000 people displaced; dozens of children orphaned; 500 boats damaged in a district where thousands of families depend on fishing.

For officials like Ambuj Sharma, the commissioner of municipal administration in Tamil Nadu, the first week involved 20-hour workdays handling the dead bodies and coordinating relief for the living.

But with the massive outpouring of international aid, the tsunami-ravaged regions are rebuilding. Construction of new, concrete homes is well under way, this time farther inland.

During the Florida trip, the delegation has toured various municipal operations in Port Orange. They visited the emergency-management center, where they learned about advance planning for emergencies and evacuation routes.

They toured stormwater sites, learning how the canals and retention ponds help to mitigate flooding. They toured the city water plant, learning about water-and-sewer operations. And they visited parks and discussed financial management and economic development.

Sharma said he was impressed with a presentation about community emergency-response teams and said he'd like to start a similar program of volunteers ready to respond to disasters.

"We would like to adopt this program to involve the community in taking care of themselves in an emergency because in the initial stages, it will take time for government to respond, especially to some of the remote villages," Sharma said.

They've also had a chance to enjoy the scenery and were impressed by the local parks and the aesthetic beauty of several Florida neighborhoods.

All of it gave them dozens of great ideas that they plan to take home. "We want to not only return to a state of normalcy, but also build our cities better," Bedi said.

Ludmilla Lelis can be reachedat llelis@orlandosentinel.com or 386-253-0964.

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