How does the military help in the fight against floods? Gen. Wiesław Kukuła on Operation “Feniks”

Monika Olejnik's guest in “Kropka nad i” was the Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, General Wiesław Kukuła. He said that 12 thousand soldiers were involved in flood-related activities on Wednesday. This number may increase to 16 thousand.

The largest number of soldiers are now in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. – This is the culminating point, in terms of the wave, but we are also starting an increasingly broad action to recreate the areas, the usability of the areas that suffered the most as a result of the flood in Lower Silesia and Opole – he said.

He added that in the Opole province, Lewin Brzeski and Narok are in a particularly difficult situation, where work is underway to seal the flood embankments.

– Today is going to be a busy night for our air force. Two Black Hawks and two Mi-17s will be dropping big bags practically all night to seal the flood embankments – the general announced on Wednesday.

– We have positive weather, we will be able to provide and continue this support also at night. We have amphibious vehicles, which are extremely popular not only for evacuation, but also for delivering support. Many towns have lost the ability to communicate by road, so today it is amphibious vehicles that deliver equipment there and prepare the ground for the reconstruction of the so-called mobility, i.e. the reconstruction of roads – explained the guest of “Kropka nad i”.

Gen. Kukuła said that an operation codenamed Feniks would be launched on Monday. – This will probably be the largest operation in the history of Poland, in which the army will be involved in supporting the reconstruction processes in areas affected by the flood – he announced.

Operation Phoenix will have “five lines of effort”. – The first line is security – it will assume that we must continue to supervise the flood embankments, which are largely heavily water-worn. (…) Even though the water recedes, we will still have to monitor their condition and reinforce them locally – he said.

– The second line of effort is of course health. (…) We will organize points of advanced medical assistance, medical, especially in smaller towns where there is no access to health care. We will also maintain helicopters for so-called medical evacuation, if such a need arises, support vaccinations, but also provide psychological assistance – he explained.

– The third line is very important, that is Mobility. It determines the pace at which we will reconstruct infrastructure, at which we will provide energy, water to towns and conditions for reconstruction. We must make roads passable as soon as possible, rebuild some of them even with temporary methods – he said.

– Logistics is very important. Most towns today have contaminated water, we have to deliver huge amounts of water. Currently, today alone we had over 40 such tankers, in which we transported tens of thousands of liters of drinking water, but it is also food and finally electricity – listed Gen. Kukuła.

– And finally the last line is training. We definitely need to raise the competences of local administration, local government officials in the area of ​​crisis management. We will start doing this as soon as we eliminate the first effects of the flood – said the guest of “Kropka nad i”.