By the end of the year, Riga will assess the suitability of properties for setting up shelters; the first results are not bright / Article

Such inspections will initially be carried out in schools, social care and medical institutions, and finally in municipal administrative buildings.

After the premises have been surveyed, suitable places will be prepared for temporary shelter for up to two hours. In valid basements, so-called “boxes” will be created with basic necessities, including food and water, as well as household equipment, which can help, for example, to clear exits, if the conditions require it.

Gradually, after that, the shelters could be improved into places where it is possible to stay for a longer period of time. However, this would require more investment.

The well-equipped shelters of the municipality will be marked with three stickers: the marking approved in the guidelines of the firefighters and rescuers, the international marking and the marking in Braille. Information about the adapted objects will be placed in the Civil Defense Plan of the Riga Municipality.

Gints Reinsons, head of Riga City Council’s Civil Defense and Operational Information Department, explained what the municipality might have to do to adapt the premises: “Renovation of ventilation systems, arrangement of other engineering communications. And provision of larger reserves. And essentially, achieving autonomy of the facility and its refuge space. This can also mean the installation of a diesel generator and the arrangement of various other communications.”

Municipalities have already managed to survey the first objects, but the first results are not encouraging.

In the “Pēcpusdiena” program of Latvijas Radio, Reinsons said: “Out of 54 objects that we have managed to survey during the month, 3 already correspond to the opening and 19 partially do. Unfortunately, the rest have been recognized as non-compliant in the first evaluation. Since the situation is not very bright .”

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