MANILA, Philippines--Wedged between a mountain range and two rivers, Barangay Banaba in San Mateo, Rizal, often finds itself literally between the devil and the deep blue sea.

During the unprecedented flooding caused by Tropical Storm ?Ondoy,? flood waters in Banaba, a community of 50,000 people, reached as high as 30 feet at its lowest point.

But despite the barangay becoming the catch basin for flood waters rushing in from three directions? Marikina River in the west, Nangka River in the south and two creeks in the east?none of its residents, or those of peripheral communities, perished during the worst of the calamity.

And it was not just due to a stroke of luck or the merciful heavens.

It was because the Banaba community, inured to the hardships of living in such perilous circumstances, has put in place since 1997 a community-based disaster preparedness program through its Buklod Tao people?s organization.

For this, the barangay has been cited in several research studies as a model for grassroots disaster management.

With the help of organizations like the Citizen Disaster Response Center (CDRC), the barangay residents have made themselves conscious about disaster preparedness and devised a framework for disaster risk reduction.

The Buklod Tao has organized a program for water level monitoring, an early warning system, rescue operations, first aid treatment and relief assistance.

The community has acquired six fiberglass boats that are always on standby for rescue operations.

It built two 8-foot tall metal ladders to help squatters in Banaba Extension?who live squeezed in a narrow area between the river and the wall of the San Joaquin subsidivision?climb up the wall and flee to higher ground during flash floods.

They have been taught to do this by what occurred during a flood, when people from the squatters area had to drill a hole in the wall of the subdivision to escape the rising waters, which greatly upset the subdivision?s residents.

The water level monitoring system is an improvised scale painted on one of the pillars of a bridge which a volunteer, Belen de Guzman, diligently watches using a flashlight and her own eyes. Once water reaches perilous levels, the information is disseminated using two-way radios, telephone lines and megaphones throughout the barangay.

?This community is a model for community-based risk reduction,? said Alberto Lim, president of Corporate Network for Disaster Response (CNDR) and the executive director of the Makati Business Club.

Lim noted that one of the Buklod Tao boats was captured by an Inquirer photographer during the Ondoy floods. The photo appeared on the front page of the Inquirer?s Sept. 27, 2009 issue.

The CNDR is one of the many benefactors of Buklod Tao and has contributed to the organization?s funds for disaster preparedness. It helped Buklod to procure the mold needed to build additional boats and the metal ladder that saved people of Banaba Extension at the height of Ondoy?s fury.

?A thousand people used that ladder and nobody died,? said Lim.

Lim said Buklod Tao had a very good community leader in Noli Abinales, known as ?Ka Noli,? a former teacher of physical education and religion who was also at one time an overseas worker in Saudi Arabia and Papua New Guinea.

He said a small grant of P250,000 given by SGV Foundation in 2005 had gone a long way in helping the community prepare for natural calamities.

The CNDR is hoping to see the same initiative replicated in other communities. Lim said people residing in vulnerable areas must know where to run in case of flooding and what to take with them.

In the case of Banaba, the designated evacuation centers are either the parish church or the Charles Science Integrated School.

During times when they are not under threat, Buklod Tao busies itself with various preparedness projects. Women members are put to work sewing improvised life jackets and ready-to-go survival kits for children contained in bags made out of used tetrapak. About 100 of these life jackets and 100 kits were distributed to high-risk areas of the barangay.

Abinales, 61, said Buklod Tao, which has about 170 active members, started as a community organization that opposed the establishment of a cement-batching plant in the community. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources heeded their protest and they won the battle.

?But the damage has been done. The agricultural lands and the character of the soil were ruined,? Abinales said.

Buklod Tao itself is based in a small sitio in the Doña Pepeng subdivision which, compared to the communities around it, is less vulnerable to disaster. But most of its volunteer work has extended to the impoverished neighboring communities, where most people earn their living from waste scavenging, selling rice cakes, operating junk shops or as factory workers, pedicurists and tricycle drivers.

Over the years, the organization has strived to mitigate the environmental degradation of their community and educated people on disaster preparedness.

According to Abinales, they have learned to find clues even from the livestock, such as the cries of the hogs grown in their backyards.

He said the flooding brought about by Ondoy was the worst he has seen in 12 years so that even the community that has become so accustomed to such calamities was shaken.

He said that even in his own house, which is one of those standing on higher ground, the flood waters reached one-and-a-half stories.

Some neighbors who climbed to the roofs of the houses were shocked to find that flooding had reached chest-level when they were already standing on the roof. They had to evacuate to the public elementary school while holding on to ropes to avoid being carried away by the current.

Abinales was able to evacuate early, taking his 82-year-old mother.

As early as 7.30 a.m., when the flood waters had hit the critical level and still rising rapidly, boats were dispatched to rescue households from the worst-hit areas. The boats measured about 8-foot long but paddling was of no use because the current was so strong.

?The rescue teams needed to use ropes that were tied up to the trees,? he said.

Abinales said there was still a lot to be done for Banaba as well as other vulnerable communities to better cope with natural calamities. For instance, Buklod Tao suggests that the local governments prohibit human settlement in the so-called ?danger zones? like the banks of rivers.

The organization is also urging Congress to pass the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention bill, which remains pending in the legislature. Under the bill, volunteer groups like Buklod Tao will be recognized in the roster of volunteers of the state and given compensation.