Sunday, 18 March 2012

Tarin Kowt Teamwork.....


I am conscious that I haven’t written a lot on this blog on the work that I do here in Afghanistan, I work as a Construction Manager for Copenhagen Contractors who provide Construction, Facilities & Maintenance Services in support of the Military on three different Bases here in Afghanistan- we provide services to a number of Coalition Partners including the Australian Defence Forces at Tarin Kowt.

In early February just past, we had unprecedented snow and flooding at Tarin Kowt which is located in a valley in the mountains in Uruzgan, and the melting snow and incessant rains over around February 1st last created extensive flooding with the base to such an extent that it caused so much damage to the Base’s Sewerage Pumping Station (constructed by us), that the entire Pump Station literally floated out of the ground, severing the inlet and outlet sewer pipes and literally bringing the entire sewage system on base to a halt, which serves some 6000 people.

Emergency Meetings were called, and we were brought in to provide emergency rectification works as we know the system best, We ended up putting our entire Team to work on the emergency for four continuous days including night time and worked very closely with the Army and Air Force to put the system operational.


It was a fantastic example of teamwork and everyone pulling together, including some of our Afghan Contractors who supply us with building material who worked over time to rectify the problems.
A solution was also devised in co-operation with out Military Partners to put in place measures to prevent a reoccurrence next year.


A Truly tough and smelly task, but I must compliment our team and Foreman for pulling together on this crisis and our colleagues in the ADF. We had the Base operational again within 4 days which in this environment with the scarcity of materials and slow supply lines, is a fantastic achievement.

Classic Teamwork !!


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