The NSRI: Two weeks of dramatic rescue operations

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Hundreds of volunteers of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) have worked day and night over the past two weeks to save lives and bring people and animals to safety in the worst storm surges and flash floods for decades. Craig Lambinon – who has been with the NSRI for 30 years – reveals the massive efforts involved in the recent rescue operations. The NSRI is a free publicly-funded 24-hour rescue service that has saved at least 1 000 lives over the past year. Lambinon shares with BizNews the “success story” of the NSRI; reveals details of its most dramatic rescue operations; and speaks about its “world-class resources” – and the funding from the public and corporations that makes it possible to save so many lives. “…we always say to the people who donate money to NSRI or people who fund NSRI through corporate sponsorships, even though they’re not physically with us on rescue operations, we still regard them as being strapped to our back when we launch a rescue operation because without them, we don’t have the world-class resources and assets that we have to respond to these emergencies.” – Chris Steyn

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Relevant timestamps from the interview

  • 00:56 – Introductions
  • 01:23 – Craig Lambinon on the past two weeks and his long career
  • 02:29 – On major evacuation operations in the Western Cape
  • 04:53 – How many people from his side were involved in rescue operations
  • 06:13 – Was this the biggest inland operation that you guys have been involved
  • 06:50 – The operations in KZN
  • 07:53 – Funding
  • 10:46 – What can the public do in terms of ensuring their own safety to make your lives easier
  • 12:24 – Conclusions

Listen here

Highlights from the Interview

Hundreds of volunteers of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) have worked day and night over the past two weeks to save lives and bring people and animals to safety in the worst storm surges and flash floods for decades.

Craig Lambinon – who has been with the NSRI for 30 years – reveals the massive efforts involved in the recent dramatic rescue operations.

The NSRI is a free publicly-funded 24-hour rescue service that has saved at least 1 000 lives over the past year. It has about 1 500 volunteers stationed around the country on coastal- and inland rescue stations.

“The last two weeks have been incredibly busy for the NSRI volunteers…with the immense weather conditions that have affected our coastline and inland around South Africa…71 people, including domestic animals, were brought to safety in flooding in Macassar. And in Stanford…at least 50 people were brought to safety over flooded waterways.”

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Lambinon says “literally hundreds of volunteers” were involved in the rescue operations. 

He adds that the latest rescue operation is “certainly up there amongst the biggest that we’ve attended to in recent times”.

The services of the NSRI come at no cost to people in trouble. “We don’t charge for rescue operations. We don’t charge if we go and rescue somebody or tow their boat to safety if they get into difficulty.”

Lambinon points out that NSRI rescue operations are “predominantly” funded by the public and corporations.

“…we always say to the people who donate money to NSRI or people who fund NSRI through corporate sponsorships, even though they’re not physically with us on rescue operations, we still regard them as being strapped to our back when we launch a rescue operation because without them, we don’t have the world-class resources and assets that we have to respond to these emergencies,” he says.

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“We do get some funding from municipalities, from Disaster Risk Management. It is a limited contribution, but anything that we get as funding is welcomed,” he adds.

Lambinon describes the NSRI as “a success story in itself”. 

“And the public of South Africa can be extremely proud of themselves to have this world-class organisation ready to respond 24 hours a day every day of the year, funded by themselves with volunteers who are giving up their time to respond to emergencies and we are on 24-hour operational alert to respond to emergencies. It’s a success story of note.”

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