Typhoons

I had the fortune of being in Taiwan when Morakot struck and now that I have experienced Ondoy, I can safely contrast the disaster response and preparedness procedures of both countries.

And since the topic is about what lessons could we learn from Ondoy, I present a few observations/tips.

1.) Declare a public holiday early. When I was in Taiwan, the govt declared a holiday early which meant that people could prepare, families were together and most importantly roads were clear of traffic.
Philippine version? No declarations till the morning, everyone went to work clogging up the streets which prevented emergency services from reaching affected areas and worst of all families were separated making finding immediate family members a daunting task post typhoon.

2.) People should heed storm warnings and not go about their daily business thinking that "its just another storm". Never underestimate mother nature. In contrast, when I as in Taiwan most everything on the TV was typhoon themed, the news agencies interviewed people preparing for the typhoon and gave out tips for preparedness, even the commercials shown had a typhoon theme.
Here in the Philippines, the night before, everything ran as usual as if they expected the next day to be a normal sunny day. Dare I say this, that part of the blame is on the public for being so nonchalant about a coming storm.

3.)PAGASA as a whole is an organization that is disrespected and ridiculed by the media and the public. The guys running PAGASA are the experts at weather and they should be the ones who should be charged(or be consulted) about announcements of suspension of classes et al. But what we have here is a system of signals where certain storm signals mean classes and no classes. Again this shows complacency as no two storms are the same and appropriate disaster response AND preparedness should be tailor fit to the situation.

In addition, there is no sense of unity in the government, as I am sure that PAGASA was at least consulted but the government did not act which brings me to my 4th point.



4.) Government preparedness, the government did not do any prepositioning of supplies, material and personnel to handle the situation. I might be mistaken, but the day before Morakot struck I was on a train towards central Taiwan and I could clearly some military trains loaded with HMVV's and other military vehicles at some stations. The amount of military stuff was probably some sort of preparation for the coming typhoon.


Military train at some station along the eastern main line. Photo taken the day before Morakot struck taiwan.
A picture of (i believe) another train taken the day before Morakot struck. One can clearly see the military ambulance loaded onto the flatcar.

Summing it all up, the Philippine government does not care about honest tax paying people.



PS: 3 storms incoming, but all show tracks veering away from the PH. But it is possible that those storms could interact which should be a very big factor in their track, hopefully going further away from us. Hoping for the best.