A Repost: Typhoon Ondoy's Aftermath, The Lessons

It's the typhoon season once again. Unfortunately, I lost my old domain, thus, I am republishing an old post to share my lessons anew.

Here goes...

Typhoon Ondoy's statistics continues to rise. Already the figures are the following:
  • death toll from massive flooding to 240
  • 1.9 million people in the capital and surrounding areas were inundated by flooding
  • about 380,000 people have sought shelter in schools, churches and other evacuation centers
  • Troops, police and volunteers have already rescued more than 12,359 people
[Source]


In my household, Typhoon Ondoy soaked photo albums, books, magazines, school notebooks, CDs, carpet, and vehicles, and cut-off water supply for four days.

Inside Armstrong Villas (In Moonwalk, Phase 1, Paranaque), the flood waters was from knee-deep to butt high. Outside the villas, near the guard outpost, it was waist-deep. Walk farther down the waters were already from neck-deep to "lampas-tao" deep.

I know it doesn't sound right to say this but yeah as most people have been saying, we're luckier than most people who live in Marikina or Cainta or in other badly hit areas in the metro.

It's not easy to overcome such an experience, but I know in time we can pass through the trauma.

Lessons learned:

1. at a personal level
  • it's good to have a second floor in your house
  • a floor-to-ceiling book-CD-shelf is not always a good idea
  • position power outlets at higher levels, perhaps overhead (we had two outlets that were placed that way near the dining room sink, so we were able to cook rice and plug the hot-normal water dispenser there at least)
  • unplug all appliances when everyone leaves the house (we failed to do so; good thing all our 9-year-old appliances survived from being submerged for 10 hours)
  • tell the security guard to call you right away when something of this kind happens
  • when choosing residence/office address, find out if the location is flood prone, otherwise be ready with life jackets (got this life jacket idea from a friend)
2. on a national level
  • throw garbage in the right places, best to recycle
  • have a regular clean-up of creeks and canals or riverbanks (please LGUs let's do this!)
  • study urban planning and be guided by the findings of the study (pretty please!)
  • (for LGUs or government agencies, or private enterprises, especially subdivision developers) do your homework please!
My only prayer is that we all (residents and agencies alike) learn from it.


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