PHOTO by NESTOR CORRALES/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines – Community leaders crisscrossing the whole village bark an urgent order to residents through powerful megaphones, “get ready to move to evacuation centers.”
Looking forward to be a model city for disaster preparedness, residents of Barangay (village) Potrero in Malabon City on Saturday conducted a community flood evacuation drill.
Hundreds of residents from high-risk areas located along the stretch of the Tullahan River participated in a series of flood preparedness activities.
Flood drill
Simulating a real disaster, the barangay council was convened at the barangay hall to get updates from the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) about the typhoon.
The same updates were being forwarded by the barangay officials to the sitio (sub-village) leaders. The entire barangay was placed under warning level 1, then raised to warning level 2. This is the “preparedness stage.”
When warning level 3 or “evacuation stage” was raised by the CDRRMC, the barangay council members relayed the same update to the sitio leaders who then announced through megaphone and siren warning all residents in danger zones to get ready to move to the designated evacuation centers.
Residents were then told to go to the “pick-up point” and wait for the vehicles to bring them to the evacuation center.
At the evacuation center, residents were asked to register for accurate head count.
The barangay has prepared a master list of families in high-risk areas to monitor residents who refused to be evacuated.
Also, security, medical and other support teams were present to assist the evacuees, especially senior citizens, disabled and pregnant residents.
To complete the simulation, relief goods and food were distributed to evacuees at temporary shelters before decampment.
“The flood drill is just a culmination of the long process of building community resilience. It is a practice session so that people and officials in the barangay will know what to do during actual emergencies,” Sheryl Nolasco, chairwoman of barangay Potrero said.
Nolasco said Potrero has the highest number of people at risk in Malabon.
“We are just happy that we are now preparing for emergencies and that our families will be safer,” she said.
LGU at the Forefront
According to Marieta Alcid, Executive Director of the Assistance and Cooperation for Community Resilience and Development Inc. (ACCORD), disaster preparedness should be a collective effort of the community with the Local Government Unit (LGU) being at the forefront.
“The LGUs should embrace the idea that their intervention should not only be during relief operations,” Alcid said.
She said LGU intervention should be initiated even before a massive flood hit the community.
“They are mandated to do that,” she said, citing the LGU is the “enabling environment” of the community during a disaster.
According to her, ACCORD, a non-government organization (NGO), is helping communities in flood-prone areas to create contingency plan and come up with a hazard timeline and projections helpful during disasters.
She said proper information dissemination is vital in disaster preparedness.
Relocation
The government has offered relocation sites but many residents declined to accept the offer.
Rodel Consuelo, a resident of Barangay Potrero, said they refused to accept the relocation offer since their livelihood is in Malabon.
Consuelo said the government would only provide a relocation site and a house but could not provide proper livelihood for the residents.
Partnership
The community flood evacuation drill is part of building resilient communities spearheaded by ACCORD and Barangay Potrero together with other government agencies and non-government organization.
RELATED STORIES
Disaster-ready drills for waterway communities