HMES Papers (a1)

The Philippines:

Forecasting with confidence

Self-doubting prophecy

For nearly five years ago today, it was suggested to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) to enhance its satellite capability instead of simply getting hand-me-down issuances from UN OOSA (United Nations Outer Space Affairs and the NOAA (United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the other geospatial information and intelligence agencies all over the world.

At a certain point in time around the period of the occurrence of the devastation by tropical storm Ketsana (Ondoy) in the Philippines, the PAGASA was clamoring for the purchase and installation of its Doppler radar system, an outmoded and unreliable system for weather forecasting.

In 2010, all throughout the government circuit, the company of Mr. Philip King called AAA, went on a lecture-presentation effort to sell the sensing and image capture technology developed by a Malaysian scientist and technology specialist who was also engaged in a similar high technology, extensive venture for the government of Canada, among other countries.

Had the Department of Science and Technology considered using a network of sensing stations with clear-photo capture capability on a 1-camera-per-station (or possibly a cluster of cameras), weather forecasting in the country, aided with charity hand-outs from NOAA, UNOOSA, the European Union, among other satellite capable agencies, will definitely be more precise at the same time vivid and viewable in real time.

It was foreseen in this site that absolutely nothing will be allowed by Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) to block its path. As early as the morning of the raging of this typhoon that PAGASA decided to merely attribute the powerful rains and killer floods to monsoons, it was already the consensus among the advocates that started this site that many people will die by Ketsana (Ondoy). More > >

Reissuing call for Renewing Paradigms

Eastern Visayas: Hardest hit area during Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)

As earlier stated in this site: “The level of confidence with which government addresses the challenges of disaster forecasting is extremely low.

“It appears that even being able to obtain certain satellite data about a tropical cyclone’s strength, and the inevitable accompanying storm surges as in New York and other parts of USA very recently, due to inferiority the PAGASA cannot shout out its warnings to the public loud enough so the people can feel the poignant threat of what is going to hit them and at what point in time in the near future.”


Furthermore, as in the case of Tropical Cyclone Ketsana (Ondoy), the Zamboanga City Siege, the Haiyan (Yolanda), among other disasters, there are a lot of dubious, suspicious, highly contradictory statements and acts by government.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) has disclosed to national media that on several days prior to November 8-9, 2013, when tropical cyclone Haiyan codenamed Yolanda struck Eastern and Central Visayas, it had issued warnings about storm surge.

A weather specialist interviewed over national television sounded extremely defensive during the interview, stating in no uncertain terms that he and his agency (PAGASA), cannot and should never be blamed for not issuing warnings about the storm surge.

The Weather Philippines Foundation
On the other hand, on 9 PM November 28, 2013, a search over the internet yielded a page called SUPER TYPHOON HAIYAN (YOLANDA) UPDATE NUMBER 010 constituting findings by a private weather forecasting entity called The Weather Philippines Foundation (WPF) that stated through a written weather advisory disseminated publicly on the internet, that storm surge of up to 18 feet or 5.5 meters will hit coastal, inland lakes and beach front areas of Eastern Visayas between 8-9 AM of Friday, November 8, 2013.

WPF is owned by the Aboitiz Group of Companies (owner of Aboitiz Shipping, Union Bank, etc.) and in partnership with the Meteomedia – a Swiss company established in 1990 by its owner, Jörg Kachelmann.

WPF warned that catastrophic damage is likely on this type of storm surge. Danger from Rip Currents or Rip Tides can be expected along the rest of the beach-front areas of Eastern Luzon, Eastern and Northern Mindanao and the rest of Visayas incl. Palawan.  More > >

Previous: Forecasting with confidence

Next: Response Effort

You might also want to read:

2010 Briefing Paper on hazards mapping and environment Summit 

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Photo Gallery: Public Warning Systems

  

                                     Diagram of a PWS

Images of the destruction by calamities in the Philippines and in Japan

Forecasting for the future with more confidence

If you warn them and they keep on sinning and refuse to repent, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved your life because you did what you were told to do. If good people turn bad and don’t listen to my warning, they will die. If you did not warn them of the consequences, then they will die in their sins. Their previous good deeds won’t help them, and I will hold you responsible, demanding your blood for theirs. But if you warn them and they repent, they will live, and you will have saved your own life, too. . . Some of them will listen, but some will ignore you, for they are rebels.

<< Ezekiel 3:18-22 >>

For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me anything to drink. 43 I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me no clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ 44 “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ 45 And he will answer, ‘I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

<< Matthew 25:41Matthew 25:42-45 Matthew 25:46 >>

Self-doubting prophecy

For nearly five years ago today, we have been goading the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) to enhance its satellite capability instead of simply getting hand-me-down issuances from UN OOSA (United Nations Outer Space Affairs and the NOAA (United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the other geospatial information and intelligence agencies all over the world.

At a certain point in time around the period of the occurrence of the devastation by tropical storm Ketsana (Ondoy) in the Philippines, the PAGASA was clamoring for the purchase and installation of its doppler radar system, an outmoded and unreliable system for weather forecasting.

In 2010, all throughout the government circuit, the company of Mr. Philip King called AAA, went on a lecture-presentation effort to sell the sensing and image capture technology developed by a Malaysian scientist and technology specialist who was also engaged in a similar high technology, extensive venture for the government of Canada, among other countries.

Had the Department of Science and Technology considered using a network of sensing stations with clear-photo capture capability on a 1-camera-per-station (or possibly a cluster of cameras), weather forecasting in the country, aided with charity hand-outs from NOAA, UNOOSA, the European Union, among other satellite capable agencies, will definitely be more precise at the same time vivid and viewable in real time.

It was foreseen in this site that absolutely nothing will be allowed by Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) to block its path. As early as the morning of the raging of this typhoon that PAGASA decided to merely moonsoon rains, it was already the consensus among the advocates that started this site that many people will die by Ketsana (Ondoy).

What kind of weather forecasting transpired during Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) was that by 10:00 AM up to 12:00 noon, PAGASA continued to refuse to declare even a Storm Signal No. 1 for Metro Manila and Rizal Province even at the height of severe rainfall, destructive and killer floods hitting entire subdivisions in Marikina and parts of Rizal, large areas in the urban center of the national capital.

In real time, it was being recommended strongly by this site that a state of calamity and state of emergency already be declared by the Office of the President.

When the media started reporting, albeit belatedly, that some people were reportedly getting killed by Ondoy, it may have dawned on PAGASA that their forecast needed to be amended. Nearing nightfall when panic and frenzy hit the public due to massive negative reports reaching media and feedback filtering through to the lower and highest levels of government, PAGASA relented and finally announced Signal No. 1. It was too late, Malacanang was then preparing to announce a serious state of calamity for the entire Metro Manila including parts of Rizal.

Hundreds died in Provident Village in Marikina. Hundreds died inside a popular Mall at the Riverside commercial complex built beside the huge Marikina River. Still hundreds others were swept by raging waters or seriously injured by stampeding objects and died instantly or were killed by being in the flood and unable to get help for their injuries.

The Haiyan (Yolanda) Fiasco

If the PAGASA did actually issue a warning, albeit introvertedly and timidly, about the storm surge in coordination with the rest of government, the evidence of the storm surge warning only appears at 5:00 AM on d-day, three hours before the storm surge has hit Tacloban City on November 8, 2013 in the national disaster risk reduction agency (NDRRMC) Advisory called Severe Weather Bulletin No. 6.

Still and all, much, much earlier that day, Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) already passed through Tolosa, Leyte and hit neighboring towns beginning its slew of devastations across the entire length of nine Regions of the Philippines.

The NDRRMC Bulletin stated that:

“Residents in low-lying and mountainous (sic) under signal #4, #3, and #2 are alerted against storm surges which may reach up to 7-meter wave height (sic).”

ACTIONS TAKEN 

o   NDRRMC Operations Center disseminated Severe Weather Bulletin No. 6 on Typhoon “Yolanda” to all OCD Regional Centers through SMS and facsimile and uploaded on the NDRRMC website for further dissemination to their respective local disaster risk reduction and management councils (LDRMMCs) from the provincial down to the municipal levels 

o   Directed RDRRMCs concerned through the OCD Regional Centers to undertake precautionary measures in their areas of responsibility (AOR) and subsequently advised local DRRMCs to initiate pre-emptive evacuation of families in low-lying and mountainous areas if situation warrants.

Had the one preparing the Severe Weather Bulletin (SWB) not merely cut and paste from one SWB to the next as can be observed in the various and different advisories issued by the NDRRMC, it must have been possible to introduce some new wording into these so-called severe bulletins. More > >

Next: Reissuing call for a paradigm shift     

Demographics and Disaster

10,000 are feared to be dead.-

Yahoo News

When the Philippine Coast Guard began recovery operations in Tacloban, together with all the other entities participating in search, rescue and recovery, they were appalled at the huge number of dead bodies floating in the sea off Tacloban’s coasts and on the streets.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction Council (NDRRMC) began with a body count of the deceased at below ten. By the morning of November 11, 2013, NDRRMC declared that the number of casualties was 255.

Around the evening Malacanang told media in a press conference that the figure has gone up to 1,700. By reckoning, the final figure cannot be less than 10,000. Spokesman Mr. Edwin Lacierda refuted the claim of 10,000 casualties…

Yahoo and other quarter’s estimate that there are 10,000 that are feared to be dead is correct. More > >

Photo credit: Agence France Press; Reuters; Manila Bulletin

Yolanda: There is a lesson to all this

What is Roxas really doing

in Tacloban anyway if the

glitches and troubles in attending

to the needs of disaster victims

can’t be resolved?

Elders used to say, even in darkness you will find some light, spelling hope and possibly a better future ahead. With the darkness wrought by Yolanda, it cannot be helped that somewhere we will find that light and the signs that all the suffering of the victims will somehow come to a close.

The occasion of doing micromanagement, grandstanding and other similar acts, apparently towards political ends, might ruin instead of prop up the chances of some politicians. This has contributed to making the situation darker in Leyte, other areas that were devastated by Yolanda.

In the case of Senator, now DILG secretary Manuel A. Roxas the 3rd, the desire to show exemplary performance and to do what other acts in Tacloban that he may not be able to perform with partners in Metro Manila, he had to sacrifice not being with the other member of his family, Mrs. Corina Sanchez Roxas and spend his working day as well as nights in Tacloban – or somewhere near that no man’s land: His stay in Tacloban irks the people who see him there and does not bode well for his political future. (Photo credit: Inquirer news)

Ms. Corazon J. Soliman on the other hand, is compelled by her duty to at least make an appearance on occasion at disaster areas being a key member of the top brass of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) unlike Mr. Roxas who has to go to Tacloban on his own resolves and determinations.

Unlike Mr. Roxas, unless there are changes we do not expect in the future, Ms. Soliman is not running for President in 2016. Eduardo D. Del Rosario, the head of the NDRRMC, should be the one staying in Tacloban – especially if he is running for President or Senator in 2016. But that may never happen. So far, because Del Rosario is a might shy over the idea of setting up camp in the disaster affected areas, even the very presence of NDRRMC according to international observers, is not felt in Tacloban and other places where they are needed the most.

This man, Del Rosario, like his seniors Secretary Voltaire T. Gazmin and Assistant Secretary Efren Q. Fernandez, is deeply embattled in the Department of National Defense where there is an invisible battle being waged by certain ambitious persons who have made it their daily mantra to campaign for the civilianization of the defense department due to the fact that they are now in the most important positions. Some of these multi-diplomaed civilian persons hold four to five concurrent positions under the Secretary, the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.

Another secretary, this one without portfolio, Jose Rene Almendras, a very close friend of the President of the Philippines, former President of Manila Water, is in the limelight of the post Yolanda tragedy possibly by the design of Mr. Aquino or Almendras’ dream of reviving the golden days of the Almendras clan in politics. From being energy secretary to cabinet secretary, Almendras, aside from Mr. Roxas is now one one of the country’s hands-on disaster response management experts. And doing a bad job with Roxas at it.

As Mr. Simeon Benigno Cojuaungco Aquino the 3rd wades through the waters of indifference over the plight of the victims of Yolanda, the share prices in the Philippine stock market plummeted, ostensibly due to the risk avoidance stance of many investors worldwide. The inside track of course will reveal that apprehensions over the Aquino regime’s handling of government and the severely wanting response to Yolanda, is a main factor in the share price plunge.

There appears to be lessons in all this. Among the most critical lessons learned during the brief past few days, considering the media perception that Mr. Aquino does not fire incompetents, the following might be more sensible to sane people:

1. Roxas must return to Manila. After the Anderson Cooper faux pas of Roxas’ wife, Corina, who was merely defending her traipsing husband, Roxas should no longer be burdened with sneaking and tripping away from Metro Manila and continue with his job at DILG as Secretary in earnest.

2. As an alternative, Mr. Aquino could also replace Roxas and move him up to become the head of a new super body on trade, finance and economic development. As trade secretary, Roxas was very effective. Given that expertise, this person can scale heights beyond Mt. Everest especially in the face of our plummeting stock market performance. (If Malacanang will pay for it, http://www.qualitychange.org can draft the executive order creating the temporary super body and the law that will make it permanent provided that this site will be allowed to bill Mr. Aquino for these expensive assessments and tedious effort of drafting an enabling order tailored fit for 2016.)

3. To make DILG run smoothly, a civilian person, not a retired military nor police officer, with traits similar to or better than that of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte should be appointed by Mr. Aquino to replace Roxas. As much as possible, whether that person comes from alta sociedad (high society) or not, the new DILG secretary must be very down-to-earth and willing to hold hands with the people – particularly in disaster stricken areas. Roxas refused to dirty his hands in Tacloban and while he is perennially making his presence felt there, he appears not to be winning confidence by being a snub and appearing to be disinterested and indifferent to the suffering Taclobanons.

4. Almendras should share his powers with Undersecretary Eduardo Del Rosario. Almendras, with the absent-mindedness of Mr. Aquino, should also use the same power to with Del Rosario to goad the entire might of the NDRRMC to action. While Del Rosario is not an expert in disaster response, as a former figure head of the special warfare community in the entire armed forces, he should be a quick thinker, tactician and smooth operator. With the powers of Almendras (who has Mr. Aquino’s backing), Del Rosario’s fast execution, all government apparatus available and even private equipment, installations can be tapped and made to work in favor of the quickest resolution of the issues in the disaster afflicted regions of the country.

What appears to be necessary at this time, is massive mobilization. The tragedy brought by Yolanda spawned so many social problems. It is needless to mention all of these negative effects of that typhoon in this space. What appears to be in order is for Del Rosario to wage war against these social problems, treat these ills as the enemy and engage a gargantuan force mobilization to end the disease persisting in Leyte and neighboring provinces.

5. Ms. Corina Sanchez should no longer speak of Anderson Cooper even in jest. (www.qualitychange.org suggests sleep therapy and positive advice on hatred for men.)

6. The suggestions of qcfcgroup.com for a more meaningful approach to managing the relief distribution, by increasing to put in place a new paradigm for managing disaster response along with hazmapping.com‘s advocacy to relocate from extreme high risk areas is recommended to be followed by the government as well as Asia Health Network to increase relief goods packing centers would be a positive step to take for this regime.

7. Finally, Mr. Aquino should give importance to this man in the photo below: his appointee to the post vacated by Almendras, Secretary Jericho Petilla of the Department of Energy. Mr. Aquino can task him with providing all the support and information Del Rosario will need.

The Petilla family and the Veloso family, have almost completely replaced the Romualdezes in achieving total control and power over Leyte.

For  generations the Petillas have lorded it over Leyte, and now they have adequate power and control as well in Southern Leyte. Therefore the energy secretary, Jericho Petilla, 3-term Leyte Governor, after having benefited from the fruits of their family’s being the overlord of Leyte should know the province like the back of his hand, plus it will be a way of giving back to the province what he had received in bountiful blessings in the past.

Related Topics:

For relocation away from danger zones:

Relocation from fire vulnerable areas

New Zealand: Large scale evacuation, relocation

Relocation away from landslide threat

UNICEF: Relocating families to safe areas

Comparative view:

To relocate or not to relocate