Worst-case scenario preparedness

I appreciate all those who e-mailed, texted or phoned me to give a feedback or reaction to my piece last week on minimizing casualties from storm surges and other natural calamities.

The few who said I’m talking from a purely theoretical perspective because it’s easier said than done, are actually correct. This is precisely what’s wrong with our disaster preparedness plans. Everyone’s knowledge about what to do and what not to do during natural calamities are only theoretical, with no serious efforts or sense of urgency to make sure that it’s already second nature to residents of risk-prone areas when the dreaded time comes.

Every city or town in our country has a disaster preparedness plan stored in some shelf, but in many areas, the plans are likely accumulating dust with not much political will and serious effort to translate them to an effective preparedness and response during calamities.

I’m sure every local government official knows theoretically what a disaster preparedness plan is but only a few are taking it seriously. A clear case in point is the mayor of a severely hit city who remained with his family in their beachfront house despite all the warnings of a huge storm surge. If the residents see that their leader does not seem to be daunted by the threat of a monstrous tide engulfing their house near the sea, then they would think it’s safe to stay at home and just brace their windows and doors.

We stressed in our column last week that it’s better to over-react, thinking of the worst-case scenario, than to underreact, thinking of the best-case scenario. Of course, it’s worse if we underreact because we have no idea whatsoever of what imminent danger we’re in.

Dangers

It’s not rocket science to assume that if we have a supertyphoon with winds double that of the usual typhoons we have, the dangers would increase exponentially and we better seek refuge in a safer place. These safe havens should be identified beforehand, and the people must know where exactly they should go. In other countries like Japan, people conduct drills from time to time to ensure that it’s absolutely clear in the their mind what they’re supposed to do and where they should go when the day of reckoning comes.

We have more than 20 tropical storms every year so we should be experts already in bracing ourselves for them. Unfortunately as a whole, we’re not. Most cities and towns still remain ill-prepared to deal with major natural catastrophes.

Inferior quality

Aside from the relative inertia or lack of sense of urgency, an obvious reason is that many of our homes are made of light materials that could be easily torn and ripped apart by a powerful typhoon. Our infrastructure also does not seem to be supertyphoon-resistant which highlights the inferior quality of these infrastructure because probably, a sizeable portion of the funds allocated for them went to kickbacks. Our telecommunication system could also need some improvements to be able to resume operations within a few days after a typhoon like “Yolanda.”

One can’t help but ask when can we ever be prepared for typhoons, no matter how strong they are. Michael Tomelden ([email protected]) e-mailed me about typhoon-resistant, “aerodynamic” low-cost houses that can be built from indigenous and other recycled materials like used tires for walls, soda pop bottles as light sources and sod roofs. Coconut trees are used as posts and floor planks. This design can be adopted in typhoon-prone areas. And it’s within our means to implement it. These houses will probably cost less than the nipa huts which can be easily blown away by the strong winds, or swept away by even small storm surges.

Japan’s preparedness

We hope to see in our lifetime the day when we can match Japan’s preparedness for natural calamities. The country has its fair share of earthquakes and other natural disasters and for hundreds of years, it had to endure them with massive loss to lives and properties. In fact in 1923, more than 140,000 people died following a major earthquake just outside Tokyo.

Fast forward several decades, and Japan has been  re-engineered in practically all aspects to withstand the wrath of nature. With practice-made-perfect effectiveness, the Japanese can also activate a quick national response when they experience natural or manmade disasters. They have regular drills to ensure everyone knows exactly what to do and what not to do during times of calamities. Within 48 hours, government response is already felt; whole communities are evacuated; tens of thousands of troops are deployed, and relief operations are well in place.

It probably all boils down to money. Japan has the kind of money we still don’t have. We still don’t have the money we need for all the infrastructure, telecommunications and other kinds of preparation to achieve the level of preparedness good enough to withstand a disaster with the least casualty.

But perhaps, unless we’re able to solve the problem of graft and corruption in our country, we’ll never have enough money; and we’ll never have the trust and faith of the people that in times of disasters—when everything seems so bleak and hopeless—the government has the competence and enough resources to tide them over.