PANAJI
Cyclone Tauktae may have wrecked the State but it was nothing short of a testing period on that day and the week after for the firemen who rose up to the occasion.
The Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services received 1,443 emergency calls of trees uprooting and other emergency services from May 15 to May 22.
Out of 1,443 calls that were made to the department, around 1100 calls had been attended immediately while the backlog of 343 emergency calls were attended at a later date.
Despite having a tough time, the department managed to prioritise the service by segregating the calls as per emergency. Most of the calls were for uprooting various trees such as Mango, Banyan, Nilgiri, Casuarina, Gulmohar, Tamarind, Jackfruit etc.
Due to such incidents, major district roads, highways, residential houses, electrical transformers, electrical poles/lines etc were severely affected.
A total of 242 fire personnel across 15 fire stations in the State worked round the clock in the past seven days to clear the road and cut the trees that had fallen.
The fire department has estimated a loss of around Rs 2 crore to houses while it managed to save property worth around Rs 2.5 crore during the relief operations.
Out of total calls, around 389 were of trees collapsing on houses, 464 were of trees fallen on roads and 92 were of trees fallen on electrical poles among others.
Functioning of six hospitals was also affected due to uprooting of trees while two police stations had to bear the brunt of the storm. Eleven religious structures were also affected while around 32 automobiles were reported to have been damaged due to the collapse of trees.
The firemen based at the Headquarters attended the most number of calls at 155, followed by Mapusa Fire Station 150 and Vasco Fire Station 120.
The other fire stations call details are as follows: Panaji 59, Pernem 73, Pilerne 73, Ponda 89, Bicholim 48, Old Goa 46, Kundaim 45, Valpoi 20 Canacona 47, Verna 53. Margao 93 and Curchorem 54.
