LINGAYEN -- Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno has directed the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council (PDCC) and the Provincial Police Office to cluster adjoining towns and identify higher places where rescue staging areas will be set up.

This is in preparation to Typhoon Santi (international codename: Mirinae), which might hit Northern Luzon in the coming days.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

Puno arrived here Thursday afternoon and had a meeting with Governor Amado Espino Jr. PDCC executive director Paterno Orduna presented the council's action plan.

He said the provincial police command is under heightened alert, with all the section command posts activated before Typhoon Pepeng hit the province still in place.

Camp Crame has sent two rubber boats to the province while the Bureau of Fire has sent 10 rubber boats.

“Since what we’re talking about is flooding, what we are doing is we're going to identify higher areas; what we will do is set up those higher areas as rescue staging areas. For example, the resources of the Bureau of

Fire and the PNP (Philippine National Police) will be prepositioned in the higher areas so that when trouble comes up, they will not be stranded. They will be able to serve and to help and rescue those that need

assistance,” he explained as he acknowledged the preparedness of the Provincial Government.

“This typhoon can be less or could be more that it was before. What we will do is put up a capability to save lives. We will concentrate in saving lives. Properties is not time sensitive as in saving lives,” he stressed.

“We have more rubber boats now, and more fire trucks that we can deploy in short notice. What I want our bureaus to do is to put up advance forward rescue centers,” he added.

Puno said he has been going around visiting the different provinces expected to be hit by the typhoon to check on their respective preparations and actions plan.

During the meeting, Governor Espino instructed Police Provincial Director Percival Barba to call for an emergency meeting of all chiefs of police and Bureau of Fire chiefs in the province.

The meeting was held 5 p.m. Thursday at the PDCC conference room here.

With Puno was Police Director Andres Caro II of the Directorate for Operations and Bureau of Fire Director Rolando Bandilla Jr.