How Nairobi County can improve Emergency Response

Governor Sonko I have seen your efforts in improving county emergency response by buying new fire trucks. But the emergency response time and emergency communication systems in the city are not that great and are a cause of grief to the many inhabitants of the city.

A month ago we had a huge fire in Langata which killed 4 people and destroyed millions in property. The fire response time was slow because firefighters couldn’t locate the blaze because of a lacking of an addressing system. And by the time they got there, the fire was too big and powerful to contain and they couldn’t fight it because the fire trucks don’t carry enough water.

A solution to this problem is the establishment of solar powered emergency call boxes throughout the city. In the slums, gated estates, on the busy city streets, in the various parks across the city, in malls, and on college campuses etc. These call boxes would allow citizens to be able to call emergency services very quickly and because they’ll be fitted with GPS, locations of emergencies could be quickly responded too without the need for confusing directions.

The government could team up with telcos or international firms to build a system accross Nairobi that would eventually be adapted to all the big urban centers in Kenya.

Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vh8DluIxY4

https://i.imgur.com/jUKT1Hn.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/swgms7X.jpg

If the county had a free app for accessing County services. Then inside the app have a fire emergency services, where if you report a fire incidence it will take the GPS location of the sender.
Maybe the set the threshold to ten or twenty incidents reports from same geographical area before they respond.

Apps, cellphones are great. But the real this system is a backbone emergency system that could save lives when you can’t access your phone.

There’s was recently a short film about these two mzungu women building such an app for ambulances.

Another thing is to have full equipped fire stations(water engines, ambulances, etc) in each ward.

The whole of Nairobi only has three fire stations . Land is going to have to be repossessed so we can have fire stations across the city.

Nairobi will probably need another 7 or 8 stations to cater to demand.

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A prime example why we need these emergency call boxes stationed across the city.