Residents living in typhoon-prone areas learn how to cope with disasters

LAWAAN, Eastern Samar — Residents of Barangay Guinob-an, Lawaan town, found themselves nowhere to go to feel safe after super typhoon “Yolanda (international name: Haiyan)” hit this town in the early morning of November 8, 2013.

Guinob-an, which is facing the Leyte Gulf, was one of the villages that bore the brunt of Yolanda’s fury.

“I could not even recall where our house stood as destruction was all over Guinob-an,” said Lani Abayan, 56 and a mother of two children.

During the onslaught of Yolanda, her family evacuated to a house which they thought was safe, only to witness later how nature was far stronger as the structure was also destroyed.

While none of the residents of the village died due to Yolanda, the trail of destruction could be seen as the houses were flattened and the coconut trees uprooted.

A women’s group in the village had been using coconuts as their main source of their livelihood in making locally-made pastries.

Learning how to be prepared

While the villagers were obviously shaken due to the massive destruction, this did not stop them from standing up towards recovery.

Different non-governmental organizations (NGOs) visited the village, which had more than 1,600 residents, to help them recover.

One of these NGOs was Oxfam which conducted disaster management training among the residents of Guinob-an in partnership with the People’s Disaster Risk Reduction Network (PDRRN).

Among the things residents learned was to have a “go-bag” where they put their personal belongings and important documents, medicine, and food items like canned goods, bottled water, rice, and even clothing.

This will sustain them for at least for a few days while waiting for the help from the government.

Restituta Benaso, 52, always sees to it that her own go bag is filled with needed essentials.

“Time is hard and I need some money to fill up my go-bag of needed foods and other items. But I don’t really mind because we need it whenever we have to evacuate due to a disaster,” the widowed mother of two children said.

Also included in her emergency bag are personal documents such as birth and school records of her children and documents related to their piece of land in the village.

Village chairwoman Analyn Abayan was grateful to Oxfam and PDRRN for teaching them how to deal with disasters.

“Before, our people here did not know what to do whenever there was a typhoon. Now, because of the training on disaster preparedness, we now know what to do before and after a disaster,” she said.

PDRRN official Efren Hipe said he too was delighted that the villagers of Guinob-an are now equipped with ideas on disaster preparedness.

Jhon-jhon Elema, Lawaan municipal disaster risk reduction management officer, said the Yolanda experience made them seriously pursue disaster preparedness programs.

“We also created a group chat among the 16 barangay chairmen here in the town to inform them of an approaching typhoon and what they are going to do like evacuating to safer places,” Elema said.

In Guiuan, also in Eastern Samar where Yolanda made its first landfall, Mayor Annaliza Kwan said they too have their own disaster management plan.

According to Kwan, they made it a policy to construct buildings and houses in compliance with the country’s building code.

“The people themselves are aware of the standard operating procedure. We have communication platforms, including Facebook messenger, to assist people needing evacuation,” she said.

A disaster mitigation plan is also in place in Tacloban City, considered ground zero of one of the world’s strongest typhoons to hit inland.

Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez said the city has built strong evacuation centers which were constructed in safe areas.

Aside from the deadly storm surge that accompanied Yolanda, lack of information on the track and progress of the typhoon was also cited as among the reasons why there were massive casualties in Tacloban.

Of the estimated more than 10,000 people who perished due to Yolanda, over 2,200 of them were from Tacloban City alone.

Rey Gozon, assistant regional director of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), said that eight years since Yolanda’s onslaught in Eastern Visayas, the local governments and people are now matured in terms of disaster mitigation measures.

“Our goal really is to have a zero casualty during a disaster,” he said.