ON or about the same time typhoon Ompong was heading inexorably towards Northern Luzon with winds exceeding 200 kilometers per hour in strength, hurricane Florence was threatening both Carolinas in the United States, prompting government appeals for evacuation from the affected areas.
As in the past, some people refused to move, choosing to ride out the storm. Many of them are regretting their stubbornness.
“I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the earth,”Tom Ballance, who owns a restaurant in New Bern, North Carolina told the Associated Press. He was one of 150 residents who refused to be evacuated and were waiting to be rescued after the hurricane struck. Some of them were trapped in their attics, fleeing floodwaters that have risen up the second floor of their houses. Initial reports said at least five people died from Florence.
We can only hope that the loss of life is as minimal from Ompong. Pagasa had warned residents of threatened communities that the situation was “potentially very destructive.” Seek shelter in stronger houses or to evacuation centers if your houses are not strong enough to withstand the battering of strong winds, the weather agency advised. “Evacuate from low-lying areas and riverbanks and stay away from coastal areas for possible flooding and storm surge.”
I hope that we have learned our lesson from Yolanda where some 7,000 died mostly from the storm surge. One can only wonder how many lives would have been spared had people taken the government’s repeated appeals to leave the coastal areas and move to higher grounds because of the threat from the sea rising to devastating levels.
Our problem is that we believe that because we have survived several past typhoons, we can also outlast the next ones. This was true in North Carolina as Florence was bearing down on them. “I’m gonna just be fine, so let ‘er blow,” Skipper Wiinner, an 84-year-old sea captain told the New York Times. The arrogance was borne out of his having stayed put for every storm since 1954 and survived.
In some cases, the reason is economic. I remember a TV5 interview of a Pasil resident who refused to leave his home during a typhoon despite warnings of possible huge waves. “If I leave, the thieves will take over,” he said. “I’d rather take chances with the waves.”
And at the height of Yolanda, TV5’s Jinky Bargio asked a group of fishermen, who were still holding on to their boats in Hagnaya, San Remigio despite the fierce winds, why they have not sought safer grounds. “If we lose our boats, we lose our livelihood,” they replied.
Of course, heeding government warnings does not absolutely guarantee your well-being during a calamity. When we were in Kyoto, Japan in early July, I woke up to my mobile phone ringing relentlessly. When I checked, it read “Emergency Alert” followed by Japanese characters. It was only after I Googled that I learned that heavy rains were expected and that they feared landslides. The Japanese are very disciplined so it is safe to assume that they all complied with the warning.
About two months later, a strong typhoon hit parts of Japan, claiming the lives of an estimated 300 people. We can only imagine how many more deaths would have resulted if the Japanese acted like we are known to do.