Natural disasters: Getting ready

By Henrylito D. Tacio
Filipinos these days, particularly those in Cotabato and Zamboanga, are experiencing the wrath of the long drought caused by El Niño.  Food insecurity has become the norm and there is less water.
But what most people don’t anticipate is the coming of another natural disaster: typhoons.  Once they start hitting the country one after another, there would be more water causing floods and landslides. 
In times of war, prepare for peace.  In time of peace, prepare for war.  So goes a Japanese saying.  And American novelist and author Mark Twain said it well: “The calamity that comes is never that one we had prepared ourselves for.” 
Take the case of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan); it has been touted as the mother of all typhoons to hit the country.  The Philippine Atmospheric Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issued public storm signal No. 4 for it.
Here’s what Associated Press wrote of the typhoon: “Yolanda slammed the island nation with a storm surge two stories high and some of the highest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone – 314 kilometers per hour as clocked by US satellites, or 237 kilometers per hour based on local reports.”
“(The deadliest super typhoon) flattened the Visayas area, destroying hundreds of houses, trees, buildings and other properties, leaving a thousand of dead people,” said the Davao regional office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of Davao region in a statement during a workshop on “Iba Na Panahon: Science for Safer Communities.”
“We learned a lot from the experience from Yolanda, what a Signal No. 4 typhoon could do to a coastal community and even across regions situated along its path,” reminds DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo in his keynote remarks.  “The lessons and wounds from this super storm are deep enough for our people to take warnings more seriously from now on.”
“The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone places on Earth,” said Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado.  “They’ve got it all. They’ve got earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, tropical cyclones, landslides.”
Davao City, the country’s biggest city in terms of total land area, is not spared from such natural disasters.  The World Wide Fund for Nature, in its edict entitled Business Risk Assessment and the Management of Climate Change Impacts, recommends that Davao City must be ready for the possible calamities that will likely happen.
“Davao City is likely to face the impacts of sea level rise, increases in sea surface temperatures, ocean acidification, and inter-annual variability of rainfall. It is also likely that Davao will become the refuge of many migrants –a trend, which has already begun,” the study said.
In a speech delivered during the Davao workshop, Dr. Montejo believed science can be used “to better understand and improve our disaster planning and preparations at the national and local community levels.”
His science-based formula in dealing with natural calamities: “Early warning leads to early action.  Early action minimizes loss.  Therefore, (these) reduced amounts of loss leads to early recovery.”
“Every year, between 600 and 800 natural disasters occur, some small and localized, others affecting several countries and many thousands of people,” writes Bob Hansford, disaster risk management advisor at Tearfund, a Christian relief and development agency.
In his article, “Managing disaster and building safer communities,” Hansford talk about the four things that happen when a disaster strikes: emergency response, rehabilitation, mitigation, and preparation.
“In the first few days and weeks after a disaster, there is a need for search and rescue, medical care, food, water, sanitation and shelter, as well as emotional support,” explains on what an emergency response is.
Rehabilitation comes next.  “As the weeks pas, houses need to be repaired, water supplies restored, and livelihoods re-instated,” Hansford says.  “Rehabilitation is often called recovery.”
Mitigation is closely linked to rehabilitation.  Examples include: stronger or raised houses, water pumps on raised platforms, alternative crops to cope better with flood or drought.  “Mitigation activities help to ‘build back better,’ making the community more resistant to future hazards,” he says.
Preparation is getting ready for the next disaster that comes.  For a storm or flood, it means establishing a warning system, setting aside food or water stocks, making ready an evacuation center or training volunteers.
But how prepared are Filipinos in terms of disasters?  “We do not have a rescue or pre-hospital law in the country,” laments Dr. Teofredo T. Esguerra, a flight surgeon who is an expert on emergency medical services.  “Our psyche is not much into it.”
Dr. Esguerra, who is with the Philippine Coast Guard Medical Service, handles air medical evacuation, remote and wilderness rescue. He also conducts training – if and when needed.  “I usually handle the difficult advance life support interventions,” he says.
In some of the training he conducted, he found out that there are quite a number of rescue teams who were ill-trained and ill-equipped.  “They don’t have much safety inductions,” says Dr. Esguerra, who is a member of the World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine and International Disaster Response Network.  “And to think of, they are performing high-end operations.”
When asked on how Filipinos can response to disasters, Dr. Esguerra replies: “Filipinos should make it like a part of their lives.   They should be like Japanese who are always prepared; in fact, they have some survival kits which have already become a part of their day-to-day activities.”
Indeed, preparedness is the key to reduce the impacts of disaster.  On November 8, 2013, Yolanda battered Tulang Diyot, a 1.5-kilometer long by 500-meter-wide island in Camotes group of islands, levelling the houses to the ground.  With more than 1,000 people, no casualty was reported.
A day before Yolanda hit Eastern Samar, former mayor Alfredo Arquillano told the residents to evacuate to higher grounds with no ifs or buts.  “It’s a good decision,” he said.  “It’s fair to say it saved everyone’s life.  There is not one house left standing on the island; everything was wiped out.”
His secret, he heeded the warnings of government agencies like the weather bureau.  “It just shows that preparedness pays,” he admitted.  “We have been working for years on early warnings, evacuations.  The awareness level of the community was so high that it went well.”