Aurora prepares for Typhoon Santi

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga—The Aurora provincial government has dispatched two trucks and food supplies to the northern towns of Dinalungan, Casiguran and Dilasag on Friday to prepare for Typhoon “Santi,” an official said Friday.

Simeon de Castro, the provincial administrator, told the Inquirer in a telephone interview said the trucks would be used for evacuation. The initial food supplies consisted of 60 cavans of rice and boxes of sardines and noodles, he said.

Classes were suspended Friday in Aurora, where Public Storm Signal No. 3 has been raised.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said Santi, packing winds of 120 kilometers per hour, was expected to hit land in Aurora on Saturday morning as it was moving westward at 15 kph. At 5 a.m. Friday, the eye of the typhoon was located at 340 km east of the provincial capital Baler.

De Castro said local officials of Dinalungan, Casiguran and Dilasag met on Thursday and activated their municipal disaster risk reduction and management councils.

These same towns bore the brunt of Typhoon Labuyo in the second week of August. Two persons drowned in floods caused by Labuyo, which inflicted P554 million in damage to crops and P42 million in dmage to infrastructure in Aurora, the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported.

De Castro said they tasked local officials to order preemptive evacuation in their areas. No such evacuation had been reported to the provincial government as of Friday morning.

De Castro said dark clouds hovered over Baler at 10 a.m.

The Philippine Coast Guard had advised fishermen on Thursday not to sail out to sea.  Aurora faces the Pacific Ocean.

Antonio Molano, director of the regional office of the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Luzon, said he has prepositioned equipment in landslide-prone highways in Aurora and Nueva Ecija to immediately clear debris and restore traffic flow should these be blocked by landslides.

Classes from preschool to high school in other provinces in northern and central Luzon under public storm warning signal numbers 1 and 2 were also suspended on Friday despite the scheduled quarterly examinations.

INQUIRER

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