Two weeks after the low-pressure-area-turned-tropical-depression-Agaton flooded significant parts of Northern Mindanao, Iligan city government went into high gear in its preparation for emergencies and disasters through the conduct of a comprehensive flood evacuation drill. The drill was spearheaded by the Office of the Mayor, with its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office as lead agency, and supported by the Climate Change Commission (CCC), the implementing office of Project Climate Twin Phoenix, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Australian Government.
Participating in the drill are four barangays—Hinaplanon, Tambacan, San Roque and Mahayahay, which were identified as high-risk communities due to its terrain or location. Four-hundred families or roughly 1,200 residents per barangay were mobilized to take part in the half-day activity.
“After Tropical Storm Sendong almost washed out parts of the (Iligan) city in 2011, there is no question in our minds that the next step, really, is to empower our communities so they would know how to prepare for or secure their families and livelihood during a disaster,” says City Mayor Celso Regencia. “We want it done systematically and in a coordinated manner so we issued an Executive Order specifically for this purpose since it is really my priority when I assumed office last July,” he added.
Prior to the actual conduct of the drill, planning and scenario building workshops were held to familiarize key members of Iligan City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committee (ICDRRMC) and local leaders with the different aspects of the activity. Orientations for each of the barangay involved were also given especially that the exercise will happen simultaneously.
During the drill, ICDRRMC followed different scenarios and implemented their contingency plan in establishing a communication and prevention system, monitoring water level, issuing warnings, transferring affected people, and securing the affected population in designated evacuation centers.
According to the chief of the city’s disaster risk reduction and management office, Lamberto Macapagal, “The number of people we have mobilized for this activity was astounding, which reached to more than a thousand. It showed the heightened level of awareness of our communities for the need to prepare themselves and their families during a disaster.”
Director Ana Cañeda of the Office of Civil Defense-Region X, witnessed the conduct of the drill. The entire exercise took roughly four hours in the four barangays, simultaneously.
According to Cañeda, “key to the successful and smooth conduct of this exercise are the committed members of the ICDRRM clusters as well as the local leaders who participated actively since the beginning of the project, from the formulation of their own contingency plan to testing it through this drill.”
The aim of the drill is to test the operability and usefulness of Iligan’s flood contingency plan while familiarizing agencies or clusters concerned with disaster-related operations.
“We started by producing climate-adjusted maps of flood-prone areas from the modelling of Iligan and Mandulog rivers, and the watershed that drain into these rivers,” says CCC Vice Chairperson, Secretary Lucille Sering. “We then used the flood hazard maps as inputs when we formulated the flood contingency plan of the city; now, we are on the implementation phase to capture a best practice work-flow for flood-related contingency planning.”
Apart from the drill, actual inputs from the communities who participated in the activity will be collected and incorporated in the contingency plan.