Typhoon Sendong: Lessons (Not) Learned

I already had a topic in mind for today's article, but after the events that happened during Typhoon Sendong (international name Washi), I thought it would be more appropriate to devote a few words to this tragedy for the sake of the victims and for better awareness about possible future disasters and how to mitigate or cope with them. As a victim of Ondoy, I can imagine very well what the victims in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City went through and are going through right now. The profile of both disasters are in fact eerily similar. Both happening on Saturdays, higher than normal rainfall, government agencies caught flat-footed.

One would have thought that after Ondoy, the different government disaster management agencies would have learned their lessons. However, by different accounts it seems PAGASA (the state weather bureau) was again caught sleeping even if international weather bureaus and even some local weather watchers knew what was coming.

Around the middle of last year, Typhoon Basyang was predicted to pass through Northern Luzon. Instead, it changed track and slammed directly into Metro Manila. Luckily, that typhoon brought more wind than rain, so the damage was not as bad as it could have been. President Aquino sacked the PAGASA chief at that time, saying that if meteorologists during World War 2 and the Korean War were able to accurately forecast the weather despite the technology of that time, why couldn't PAGASA perform similarly? Most people must have thought that this incident would have turned things around for the weather bureau, and over the next few months there were occasional news reports about new Doppler radar stations being set up. Unfortunately, Typhoon Sendong has shown that nothing has really changed. The evidence points to a problem that goes beyond the lack of modern technology or budget.

What happened last week was the Normalcy Bias in action over a massive scale (I wrote an article about this back in October). The people at PAGASA couldn't believe that a typhoon was really heading towards Mindanao, because the projected track of the typhoon covered areas that were not in the traditional typhoon belt. In the case of the people in the affected areas, even after the storm signals went up, no one really paid much attention because again, typhoons never really passed their areas. The tragic results speak for themselves.

Geo Farms founder and manager Edgard Guevara commented that the Typhoon Sendong tragedy only shows that we cannot rely on government or other agencies to watch over our welfare. The best way to prepare for a disaster is to ready oneself and one's family first, and then eventually involve the whole community. Any outside help that comes will then become a bonus that will merely supplement one's own preparations.

Victory loves preparation, so if you want to start educating yourself, you can watch a few YouTube flood survival videos here and another one here. It's strange that just last week I was also watching the National Geographic channel's Doomsday Preppers. One doesn't need to go to the extremes that the people featured in the show went to, but some level of preparation is definitely necessary. Beyond physical and material preparations, meditation and prayer should also become part and parcel of one's life. The power of sincere prayer should never be underestimated.

But while we proceed with our own preparations (or debate their necessity), there is still the immediate concern of helping the victims and survivors in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City and other areas. If you want to help, please visit this site in order to identify which avenue of support you want to use.