Philippines - Philippines to learn from US handling of superstorm

American officials showed strong political will by shutting down key transportation systems, schools and offices and evacuating people ahead of onslaught of Superstorm “Sandy”. They also had the information to make crucial decisions.

These are the key lessons that Philippine officials could learn from US preparations for Sandy’s havoc on the East Coast’s major cities.

“That’s political will,” Toni Loyzaga, executive director of the Manila Observatory, said of the shutdown of airports, subways, train systems, and even stock markets, and the cancellation of flights, among other precautionary measures.

Loyzaga singled out New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for taking the lead in warning residents in low-lying areas of Lower Manhattan to move out.

“You really need to be able to see that the mayor is the lead stakeholder. Everybody else needs to take his view,” she said by phone. “We should have the political will to do what Mayor Bloomberg did. In our case, political will could still be strengthened to undertake appropriate measures and evacuate everyone.”

Beyond decision-making in times of disasters, Filipino leaders need political will to address the “social vulnerability” of the Philippines and Manila, as a major coastal city, “to come up with a viable land use policy and land management policy,” Loyzaga said.

Alfredo Mahar Lagmay, director of Project Noah [Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards], agreed that the preparations for Sandy were as usual “organised” and “systematic” because of accurate information at the disposal of all stakeholders.

“From what I’m reading it’s a very big hurricane. Its diameter could span from north to south of the Philippines,” Lagmay said.

“From the start they were able to track the storm. They know how heavy the rainfall is. They know its distribution and speed. They know that the southern part of the eye will generate storm surges,” he said.

“That’s how it should be. We should have the same preparations.”

Timely weather forecasts

Lagmay has witnessed similar preparations on such a scale before, when Hurricane “Irene” hit New York in August 2011.

“TV channels were airing forecasts of rainfall per hour, its volume and distribution. There were maps—rainfall maps, rainfall distribution maps—and they were being aired on TV,” he said by phone. “Of course, there were slight errors in forecasting, but I’d attribute that to the limits of forecasting.”

And crucial to the US preparations was the cooperation of all stakeholders, from federal and local officials to TV networks to the public, Lagmay said.

Benito Ramos, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said imposing a curfew and arresting those who refuse to follow the warnings of local officials were among the few things that Filipinos should learn from the experience of Americans affected by Sandy.

“If there is one good lesson that we can learn from the US experience with Sandy, that’s their decision to impose forced evacuation,” Ramos told the Inquirer.

“While we have also been doing that, residents in areas affected by the typhoons won’t obey their local officials until the floods become mountain-high,” he added.

Manila unprepared

“Can you imagine if an earthquake or supertyphoon makes a direct hit on Metro Manila? There are 18,660 persons per square kilometre in the metropolis. You are actually asking for trouble with that (population density),” said former Senatro Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).

“We’re not prepared totally. Manila is too big,” Gordon said in an interview. “Metro Manila has to be decongested.”

Gordon said he and Red Cross officials had been taking notes of the US preparations.

“One lesson we learned is to have many emergency numbers because we also experienced during ‘Ondoy’ that the emergency lines got clogged,” Gordon said, referring to the tropical storm that inundated the capital overnight in 2009 and left more than 700 people dead.

He said the public should also be informed where to park their vehicles during floods to keep thoroughfares open. “We also experienced during Ondoy streets getting clogged with parked cars. Our rescue vehicles could not get in because of the massive traffic jam,” Gordon said.

“While the Americans already get distressed by rising flood waters, Filipinos usually dismiss it, saying that we’re used to that. But that doesn’t make it right,” he added.

44 volunteers per barangay

Gordon said there was a need to dredge Pasig River and Laguna de Bay, widen the Napindan floodway, remove informal settlers along waterways, and plant more trees in the mountains of Rizal province.

The PRC is recruiting volunteers so that it would have its target of 44 volunteers in every barangay across the country, he said.

“We need 1.8 million volunteers so that in every barangay we would have someone in charge of evacuation, someone who would look for those missing, and someone to report to our operations centre,” he said.

The PRC is also setting up an operations centre in Subic Bay in Zambales province so that if an earthquake cripples its headquarters in Manila, its rescue and relief operations will not be affected, Gordon added.

“The PRC is also in control of 22 of the country 32 blood centres while we have 15,000 tents ready for deployment,” Gordon said. “We have a big filtration tank that can provide water to 40,000 people and 15 smaller ones for emergencies.”

TJ Burgonio, Philip C. Tubeza and Marlon Ramos

Philippine Daily Inquirer

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