HOW THE EARTHQUKE,FLOOD AND CORONA EXPOSED BANDIĆ'S KEY MAN FOR DISASTERS

POLITICS & CRIME How the earthquake, flood and corona exposed Bandic's key man for disasters A look at the unusual career of the head of the Zagreb Office for Emergency Management, Pavle Kalinić KD CHRISTIAN DOSEN 15:54 1 RECOMMENDATION 0 COMMENTS LAST CHANGE: JUL 28, 2020PHOTO: PATRIK MACEK / PIXSELL Ablack beret on his head, a sly smile and verbal readiness for any kind of catastrophe, from an alien invasion to a nuclear-biological terrorist attack. No, this is not a template character from American action films produced by B, but the head of the Zagreb Office for Emergency Management, Pavle Kalinic . A line from the time of the Office's launch was recorded in the media: journalists asked Kalinic what he would actually do. The answer was, “Have you watched American disaster movies? There you go. ” A full 12 years later, Kalinic continues to parade through the metropolis, immersed in the role of local defense minister against imaginable and unimaginable cataclysms, waiting for his five minutes. The real Robin of Zagreb's Batman for the Poor, Milan Bandić . Until March this year, there were no major catastrophes in Zagreb that would fall under Kalinic's jurisdiction. And then the hero of our crisis in the past few months has seen as many as three of the five listed in last year's disaster risk assessment document for Zagreb: pandemic, earthquake and flood. THE CALAMITIES STRIPPED HIM TO THE END After the drama with the recent flood passed, Kalinic immediately appeared on television to explain that the pipes may have been damaged in the earthquake, but that has yet to be determined; that he has only now asked Hrvatske vode to form emergency teams for such situations; that the situation with pipes has been deteriorating over the last 30 years due to "interest and profit"; that such a flood occurs once in a hundred years. In short, he sounded like he was running the Office of Management afterlife. His boss Bandic put an end to the "i", shifting some of the responsibility for the floods to citizens who "expanded basements and turned them into housing units". However, it is not clear how the hospital in Klaićeva, which also swam in the water due to the lack of drainage, would fit into this claim. The modus operandi of thorough scrubbing of responsibility from oneself and in this case proved to be the main characteristic of the person in charge of keeping cataclysmic situations under some kind of control. The disasters that hit the metropolis exposed him to the end. FAMOUS RADIO SHOW That the city and its services are ready for the worst, even the earthquake, Kalinic convincingly claimed at the end of February as a guest on RTL Direkt on the eve of the upcoming corona crisis. Three weeks later, Zagreb's hills shook, chunks of chimneys and parts of ruined, unmaintained facades began to fall, people ran into the streets in panic, houses were broken in half. And then, in an extraordinary radio program, an hour after the second strong earthquake, the chief emergency manager responded. "So far, it's better than I expected," Kalinic reassured himself in the introduction, and panicked and continued to shout at the citizens to stay outside, saying that he would save them. At one point, he stated that "after the first fire, the second will come soon." Very comforting for the shocked and frozen citizens of Zagreb, who had already been overwhelmed by this second earthquake. So briefly sounded the readiness of a man who for more than a decade had supposedly prepared the system and himself for exactly that moment. TERRORISM OR EARTHQUAKE AS THE BIGGEST THREAT? Back in 2008, Bandić invented the Office of Emergency Management for the then head of the Education Office, Kalinić, after returning from a business trip from the USA. Namely, the duo was inspired by the megalomaniac crisis management centers they saw in American multimillion-dollar cities. And he concluded that Zagreb should have something like that. However, plans to create a Zagreb version of the concrete Pentagon located somewhere in Sesvete have been swept away by a severe financial crisis. So Kalinic was given premises in Ilica for consolation and the business could start. For the man who received his doctorate on the subject of George Bush's politics and Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to Zagreb was, of course, terrorism. Demonstration exercises on the subject, fantasies about an armored vehicle, a crisis bunker quickly followed. And then it was realized that Zagreb might still be in danger of earthquakes, so a thematic international conference was held. “You need to start consolidating all your older buildings. You need to make a detailed intervention plan, as well as a mass evacuation plan in case of an earthquake. You need to secure and protect your hospitals, schools, public buildings particularly well. I am aware that there are huge financial sacrifices and costs, but that is the only possible way to effectively fight the earthquake ", said the first man of the devastated Italian city of L'Aquila, Massimo Cialente , to the participants of the conference in Zagreb and appealed to all relevant to take the above steps until it is too late. ONE OF KALINIC'S HOBBIES Ten years after these warnings, in front of a large blue background with the inscription "my Zagreb", we watched Bandić in the role of the Chief of the Crisis Staff of the Civil Protection of the City of Zagreb quarrel with everyone, while the city floats in post-earthquake chaos. He nervously repeated that no one could have predicted the earthquake. And that is not entirely true. Of course, no one can know the day when it will happen, but everything that will happen during and after the earthquake has been predicted for years. The earthquakes were one of Kalinic's hobbies anyway: he frantically printed leaflets on how to act in the event of an earthquake, thought aloud about the locations of potential mass graves, and pasted maps of evacuation zones around the city. Interestingly, one of the planned evacuation zones with a tent settlement is located right on the Hippodrome, the planned location of the famous Manhattan on the Sava. CRACKS IN THE TOP How much attention was paid to the map with instructions for earthquakes pasted on tram and bus stations, can be seen by the bizarre omission: the blind and visually impaired were recommended to write an SMS to 112 in case of an earthquake, instead of calling. The slip was probably made by copying the line above, which contains the same instructions for people with hearing and speech impairments. THE TEXT CONTINUES AFTER THE AD Sponsored content Experience the thrill of moving into a new home with an RBA home loan! Midas - Native Internet Advertising If we look at the planned evacuation routes on Kalinic's map, the red lines lead across the Sava, but bypass the three central bridges over the river. The reasons have long been known: estimates point out that a devastating earthquake simply would not last. There was investment in bridges, though. But mostly in lighting, for which the people of Zagreb have set aside around 40 million kuna in the last few years. Although Kalinic organized several civil protection exercises, especially after the moderately strong earthquake of 2015, the system, which works on paper and in simulation conditions, showed cracks at the very top. For example, during the presentation of the Analysis and the Plan for the Development of the Civil Protection System, City Representative Renato Petek caught Kalinic unprepared for a trivial matter. He asked him if he had a satellite cell phone with him, which was assigned to him as part of the improvement of the crisis communication system. PERSONAL TANK IN THE GAME But the lead crisis manager admitted to leaving him in the car. It was a banal but clear signal in which direction the situation could develop in the event of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake, as eerily accurately predicted in the scenario of exercise "Sava 2019." held late last year. In the absence of major crises, Kalinic until this year, at the expense of the city budget, mainly dealt with bizarre public outbursts, searching for the head of Ivo Lola Ribar's bust , occasional military service, insulting ministers and other state officials, commenting on world accidents on television, monitoring anti-terrorist and rescue exercises. And let's not forget, by trying to procure a personal tank in case of an attack on Zagreb with unknown biological weapons. THE SCRIPT DIDN'T SIT WELL WITH HIM Emergency services, which knew how to do their job even before the establishment of Kalinic's office, reacted promptly and professionally during the flood and earthquake. Despite the detailed and warning earthquake scenarios in official documents, after this flood it is even clearer that a serious plan for dealing with the consequences of the earthquake in the City in the long run clearly did not exist. As his boss called the citizens for the flooded basements, so did others blame Kalinic after the earthquake: citizens who do not want to put themselves under his cap in the Civil Protection; citizens who allegedly put new rubble on the street as soon as the city allegedly removes the existing one; citizens who have not studied leaflets and slip cards; citizens who are always looking for someone to blame for the current situation. As, for example, the culprit is sought by the citizen Kalinic. The script of this American disaster film we live in didn't sit well with him.