Seoul's Seongdong-gu, led by District Mayor Yoo Bo-hwa, is operating a "Flood-Vulnerable Household Care Unit" to proactively address summer heavy rainfall and flood damage.
The care unit is a community-based safety network of about 89 people — including building residents and neighbors living near registered households and care-designated civil servants — and will intensively manage flood-vulnerable households through October as part of the district's flood and storm preparedness period.
When the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Disaster and Safety Headquarters issues a flood forecast (20 millimeters per 15 minutes or 55 millimeters per hour), or Seongdong-gu's Disaster and Safety Headquarters issues a flood warning following CCTV and on-site verification, care civil servants activate the emergency contact network to rapidly relay the situation to the unit. Members then immediately dispatch to the affected households, providing close support through every step from checking the surrounding area to moving residents to an evacuation shelter.
The district has prioritized 49 households as initial beneficiaries — flood-vulnerable residents living in below-ground floors who applied for support on the grounds that they would have difficulty evacuating on their own, including people with disabilities and the elderly.
The district also plans to conduct additional investigations targeting housing units where flood barriers have been installed due to flood risk, confirm whether residents wish to apply for the service, and proactively identify care households that may have fallen through the cracks.
In addition, the district held a safety and job training session for care unit members on Thursday, July 16, to further strengthen their on-site response capabilities.
The training was designed to build members' disaster-response capacity in preparation for the increasingly frequent sudden downpours driven by climate change, and to enable faster and safer support for flood-risk households.
The session covered basic flood and storm disaster preparedness, the disaster response and recovery system and action manuals, and the duties and roles of care unit members when flood forecasts or warnings are issued. Participants particularly focused on practical response techniques immediately applicable in the field — from operating the emergency contact network to providing evacuation support across various scenarios.
Instructors from the Seongdong Life Safety Learning Center and civil servants with hands-on disaster response experience led the session, sharing step-by-step action guidelines and field know-how drawn from real flood cases.
The district also plans to distribute heat-wave preparedness guides and leaflets to care unit members ahead of summer fieldwork and to provide the safety equipment needed for their activities, ensuring safe conditions on the ground.
"Because heavy rainfall can strike without warning, advance preparation and rapid response for flood-vulnerable households are more important than anything else," District Mayor Yoo said. "We will do our utmost to protect residents' lives and safety from disasters through a tight-knit care system and ongoing education, and to make Seongdong-gu a place where every resident can feel secure."
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