Lessons from another killer flood

By Lessons from another killer flood

Early this month this column had urged more attention and action on the economy, disasters, rebel and private armies, amid the obsession with political controversies in the government, the media and the public.

On calamities the December 5 article lamented: “Sadly, disaster prevention efforts tend to be neglected or shelved until some devastating calamity prompts national leaders to dust off well-conceived plans and point at one another for not moving on them, only to shelve the proposals again until the next media frenzy over some future megaflood.”

With Sendong’s more than 1,500 dead or missing, it’s dusting-off and finger-pointing time again.

President Benigno Aquino 3rd wants the government’s disaster response manual reviewed. One is reminded of PNoy’s statement after the Rizal Park hostage bloodbath. He said the counter-terrorism manual advised against letting top officials deal with terrorists—exactly what his predecessor Gloria Arroyo did to peacefully defuse such crisis: assign Palace and Cabinet bigwigs to handle them.

Meanwhile, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council executive director Benito Ramos took a leaf from PNoy and blamed the hundreds engulfed by floodwaters in their sleep for failing to heed storm warnings. Back in September the Chief Executive had similarly deplored the failure of Typhoon Pedring victims to evacuate despite NDRRMC alerts.

In fact, the problem was not a faulty disaster response protocol or public complacency toward storm warnings. Rather, what President Aquino and the NDRRMC should look into are inadequate implementation of the calamity action plan, and late, if not lacking alerts to communities under threat.

Plus the unprecedented weather patterns created by global warming and now devastating areas long spared by storms.

First, the weather. When heavy rains triggered landslides and flooding all across Eastern Luzon in the unusual month of December 2006, it was a wake-up call that super-storms could happen outside of centuries-old climatic patterns. Any doubters should have been convinced after the 2009 Ondoy and Pepeng mega-floods.

That same year, those who thought Northern Mindanao would continue decades of being spared from killer flash floods got fair and fatal warning. Indeed, Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan City, and their environs—the very areas submerged by Sendong over the weekend—got a foretaste of those killer rains in January 2009. Typhoon Auring hit nearly 50,000 families, left five people dead, and swept away almost a hundred houses.

So all those excuses about officials and people thinking that it couldn’t happen there are just a testimony to short memories, if not poor planning. Hence, Lesson 1: In this age of global warming, expect and prepare for mega-storms where they have never happened. Or else whole villages, even cities, could literally be caught sleeping by raging waters.

The increased unpredictability of weather underscores the life-and-death importance of Lesson 3: The national and local governments and all communities must build not just systems but a culture of logistical and training preparedness, rapid response, and coordinated, concerted action for safety, rescue, relief and recovery in calamities.

This is exactly what is contained in the Strategic National Action Plan for calamity preparedness and response, as well as the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law, which transformed the past calamity council into the NDRRMC. Both were painstakingly and expertly crafted by government, non-government and international disaster experts, who considered not just past calamities, but also the vagaries of future contingencies in light of climate change.

In sum, Mr. President, there is no need to review the “manual” for disaster preparedness and response. You just need to set aside your misgivings about policies bequeathed by your predecessor, and get the Cabinet and local leaders complying with the SNAP and the NDRRM Law. Such efforts will save countless lives even if you vetoed disaster preparedness and response funds in your two budgets.

Sustained presidential drive is even more indispensable because disaster preparedness tends to be neglected, and calamity threats downplayed until floodwaters are gushing toward defenseless homes. And the work needed is immense and interminable, especially in areas not typhoon-prone and therefore lacking flood control infrastructure, civil defense systems, and the culture of safety and preparedness.

NDRRMC executive director Ramos also cited the lack of doppler radars in Mindanao — there is only one — for the failure to assess how much rain Sendong brought. In fact, both US weather monitoring and a storm blogger, typhoonk.com, had been warning about the rain monster for a week before it hit Northern Mindanao. But PAGASA and NDRRMC were silent all that time.

Which brings us back to Lesson 2: If SNAP and the NDRRM Law are fast-tracked, then not only NDRRMC, but also local disaster councils would be monitoring the many weather reports. Local authorities and communities would be primed to move fast once threats are spotted. And when calamity strikes, rescue and relief logistics, including quick-deployment rafts, would be in place to save lives.

The disaster manual is fine. We just have to follow it.

Ricardo Saludo was secretary-general of the Ondoy and Pepeng reconstruction commission. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report

report@censeisolutions.com.