Pelikán stressed that over a thousand firefighters are now deployed in the area. There are also dozens of soldiers and literally hundreds of volunteers working there. The problem is that the affected villages are very difficult to get through, which then complicates the clearing of debris.
“We have enough people, enough equipment on the ground. At the moment we need space to work,” Pelikán said, adding that there is no time to deal with the extra firefighting units.
He stressed that each unit must have clear instructions from the firefighters’ operations centre to operate in the area. Otherwise they should not be there. Moreover, these volunteer firefighters leave their villages, towns and micro-regions unchecked.
Volunteers who go from house to house and lend a hand where they can be in the area, according to the South Moravian Governor Jan Grolich (KDU-ČSL). The volunteers need to park the car they came in behind the village and go in on their own. In Moravská Nová Ves there is a shuttle bus service for them that runs from the car park to the centre.
However, they should not go to the area on Sundays. “Those who are there now are enough, there would currently be no room or work for others,” the governor said on Twitter, thanking everyone for their willingness.
The stop sign is also in place for further donations to be taken directly to the villages. The donations are being taken to the centres in Hodonín and Breclav, from where they are taken directly to the locations according to the instructions of the crisis staffs. In many places the police are trying to keep the roads passable, with truck drivers zigzagging among the piles of rubble.
Although the whole area has been turned into a giant human anthill, there are no problems.
“We’ve only dealt with two things. The first case involved a volunteer who wanted to enter the village even though the patrol on the spot clearly forbade him to do so. In the second case, we had to pacify a volunteer who wanted to help with a chainsaw but was drunk, which would have endangered himself and others,” said South Moravian Police Director Leoš Tržil.