In the wake of ‘Egay’

“July being National Disaster Resilience Month, we may as well examine where we are in the realm of disaster preparedness and rehabilitation.

Like a little tin roof against a strong gust of wind, our notions of preparedness in times of calamity are often blown away for various reasons.

When “Yolanda” (Haiyan) caused so much destruction in 2013, they said it was because nobody really knew what a storm surge was. Meanwhile, Typhoon “Odette” (Rai) in 2021, packing winds of up to 260 kilometers per hour, flattened Siargao. It was later described as the “strongest storm to hit Mindanao in 10 years.”

Prone as we are to cyclones, is it fair to say it is still ill-preparedness that worsens the damage and loss during typhoons?

July being National Disaster Resilience Month, we may as well examine where we are in the realm of disaster preparedness and rehabilitation.

“Yolanda’s” wrath caused the death of 6,300 and damage of about P101 billion, sources say. The government “had to spend some P559.86 billion for rehabilitation and recovery.”

“Odette” meanwhile, took the lives of over 400 people and did damage worth P51.8 billion. It was the 15th storm to hit the country that year.

At one time or another, parts of the calamity-prone Philippines get hit and suffer damage that takes billions of pesos and a long time to reverse. In the a ftermath, we identify areas for disaster preparedness that may yet be improved.

And what came out after the most recent typhoon slammed into the northern Philippines? Super Typhoon “Egay” (Doksuri) hit provinces “with ferocious wind and rain, displacing nearly 16,000 villagers,” reports said.

As usual, floods rose and electric posts fell, causing power outages.

And, as usual, too, the aid came to the affected families, as temporary as the rains that soaked them and the winds that blew away their homes and livelihood.

There are always funds for calamities, after all, and for “Egay,” this was more than P173 million.

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), a “pioneer in scholarly, open access publishing” based in Basel, Switzerland, defines disaster preparedness as “a set of steps taken to guarantee that the resources needed for a successful response are accessible before a disaster happens or that the resources can be accessed quickly when disaster strikes.”

The response, for the most part, is the most obvious sign of improvement. Where it took hours for rescue teams to arrive due to logistical nightmares in decades past, now our teams are ready and able to save more lives.

Evacuations are often done in advance following prior warnings from the agencies concerned for local governments to mobilize.

What is unfortunate about super typhoons hitting agricultural areas is that farms and crops take months to recover from the extensive damage.

The power supply is another matter that, when cut off because of storms, worsens the situation for victims of calamities in affected areas, sometimes for days. Why do we have electric posts all over the country that only get toppled by strong winds barreling in the months of July to September?

Impassable roads and bridges, too, cause delays and inconvenience in places razed by typhoons.

Public Works and Highways can only manage infrastructure issues, but when it comes to soil erosion that causes landslides, for example, or shrinking mangroves that would have protected coastal towns from floods – well, that is Environment and Natural Resources.

Government can keep creating agencies and bodies to handle risk reduction and disaster management, but in the end, what will save more people and lessen the overall impact of harsh calamities is a concerted effort from all sectors, all departments, and agencies, performing their duties consistently even before disasters come rolling in.

Sometimes strong winds cannot uproot stronger roots.

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