BAGUIO CITY– The Cordillera office of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD-CAR) expressed its gratitude to all stakeholders in the regional, provincial, city, municipal and barangay levels for their utmost cooperation in the unified implementation of disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) plans that resulted to the attainment of zero casualties regionwide during the onslaught of Tropical Strom Egay last week.
Andrew Alex Uy, OCD-CAR regional director, said all stakeholders adhered to the unified DRRM plan coupled with the full cooperation of the people, especially those in identified disaster-prone areas, that resulted to the attainment of no casualties amidst the minimal damage to infrastructure and agriculture in the different parts of the region.
“We have to credit the awareness of our people on what the different disaster councils were able to put in place in order to ensure the disaster resilience up to the grassroots level. We need to sustain our momentum and be consistent on our plans in order to achieve the zero casualties in future calamities that will hit the region,” Uy stressed.
The OCD-CAR official disclosed one of the key factors in instilling awareness to the people was the timely announcement of the excessive rainfall that poured over the region last Sunday where the instruments of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) recorded a rainfall of 179.8 mm for a 9-hour period from 2 am to 11 am Sunday that exceeded the threshold of 150 mm..
According to him, after the reported overshooting of the rainfall threshold, it was when numerous landslides and soil erosions were reported in the different parts of the region because of the heavily induced soil cover but the disaster resilience of the local governments and the cooperation of the people to pre-emptive evacuation efforts done in identified critical areas resulted to the zero casualties in the region.
Uy cited the timely reactivation of the different local disaster councils in the provincial, city and municipal levels was instrumental in cascading to the people vital information that made them aware of what to do when the rains started to continuously pour over their areas for over 24 hours at the height of Tropical Storm Egay.
He revealed150 families were affected in the whole region comprising of 637 individuals.
Furthermore, the OCD-CAR official bared Initial cost of damages in infrastructure regionwide was pegged at P59,286,283.59 while agriculture was said to be more than P12,496,253.00.
He cited rapid Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis is being performed by affected LDRRMCs to determine the extent of damages and needs.
Uy said the appropriate clusters of the Cordillera Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) reported the effective and efficient delivery of services down to the local levels in compliance with their respective mandates to guarantee availability of emergency food supplies for the calamity victims, the immediate opening of roads and bridges affected by the storm and the capability of health units to respond to the health requirements during the onslaught of calamities and after the natural disaster shall have left the region.
By Dexter A. See
