Flood drills are life savers

Since he was a child, Narcisa Velasco cannot recall a year when her village in Calasiao town in Pangasinan province was not submerged in flood waters.

Twice or thrice a year, she says, she and the more than 5,000 residents of Barangay (village) Talibaew would wade in chest-deep floods or ride on boats and bamboo rafts just to get to the town’s public market, more than a kilometer away, to buy food and other basic needs.

“When rainy season comes, we begin to get nervous and pray that the water would not be too high,” says Velasco, now 75.

Talibaew, a low-lying farming village in Calasiao, lies along the Marusay-Sinocalan Rivers, one of Pangasinan’s major river systems originating from the Cordillera mountains.

“But we are already used to the floods. That’s why when June comes, we begin to buy more rice, noodles, coffee, sugar and bagoong (fish paste),” Velasco says.

Calasiao, being in the path of flood waters draining from eastern Pangasinan towns to the Lingayen Gulf, is central Pangasinan’s catch basin.

Stocking food

Marissa de Vera, another villager, says that stocking food is necessary because flood waters usually linger in Talibaew for at least three months, from July to October, and sometimes up to November.

“It’s too risky to go to the town center. It’s expensive, too. By boat, the fare is P20; if you are alone, you are charged P50,” she says.

When they run out of food, she says, residents would just wait for relief goods, try to catch fish swept by flood waters or gather kangkong (swamp cabbage) tops for their meal or just drink coffee.

“By God’s grace, we have always survived just by eating bagoong and kangkong tops,” De Vera says.

But aside from the villagers, teachers, especially those who are not from the village, also bear the brunt.

“A school year would not be complete if there was no flood,” says Ma. Sonia Solis, principal of the Talibaew Elementary School. “Sometimes, while at school, we are unaware that the river has overflown. When we go home, we have to wade in flood waters,” she says.

More difficult

What makes it more difficult for them, she says, is that after the flood, they will have to clean and hold make up classes.

“Then we have to replace our visual aids when these are destroyed by the flood,” Solis says.

She recalls that during her first year of teaching, she once rushed to the school at 8 p.m. to move her teaching aids and materials to a safer place because she was alerted that the Marusay River was beginning to swell.

But like the other village residents, Solis says that the teachers had learned to cope with the perennial flooding. “Every Friday, they now move their things to higher places in their classrooms, especially if it has been raining for days,” she says.

Climate change

But with climate change inducing stronger typhoons and more rains, Melchito Castro, Ilocos regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, says that there is a need to empower village residents to deal with disasters, such as floods.

“They are the frontliners when it comes to disasters. This is why we are training them on community-based risk reduction management and risk assessment,” Castro says.

Two weeks ago, Castro was in Calasiao to supervise a flood drill conducted by the provincial disaster risk reduction and management council.

“Through this drill, we hope we can make them realize that disasters now are more destructive than before. That’s why we always give a worst-case scenario and our parameters are those of [Supertyphoon] Yolanda-hit areas,” he says.