It has been a month since Typhoon Odette surprised us and while life is more or less back to normal in parts of Negros Island that were fortunate to have been spared the direct hit of by nature’s fury, let us not forget that the southern part of the island is still reeling from the devastation and those who were affected are still depending on relief and mercy missions to get by or start rebuilding.
There are still areas where electricity has not yet been restored. Others are still rebuilding their homes that were devastated by the awesomely terrifying power of the storm most of us were unfortunately ill-prepared for.
As we do our best to continue helping those in need, we also cannot help but think about how ill-prepared we were for “Odette.”
The last memorably strong storm we experienced was Typhoon Yolanda and if you come to think of it, it seems like we either never learned anything or we simply forgot the lessons we learned then when we first surveyed the damage and the near misses after the immediate danger of the storm had passed.
I distinctly remember telling myself then that our home needed some sort of storm shutters to protect the extra-large glass windows from powerful and potentially debris-laden winds. I already had an affordable DIY design in mind consisting of a few sheets of pre-cut plywood and an easy method of securing them to the window grills. However, after the threat of the storm passed, those plans were forgotten and only remembered seven years after, every time Odette’s winds slammed into the same window I considered vulnerable then.
I also remember thinking about a DIY emergency sand bag system for my home, right after the New Year’s Day flooding of 2021. This is a little bit more complicated than the plywood storm shutters, but knowing how vulnerable we are to extreme weather events that aren’t going away any time soon, I probably shouldn’t wait another 7 years before putting emergency plans to protect my home in action.
The other thing I’ve always been thinking about is an emergency genset for extended power failures. Before Odette, I knew my home could survive short blackouts so I didn’t really consider a genset a priority. One reason for this is that the CENECO people in my area are pretty efficient and unlike most of Bacolod, we don’t have those regular 8-hour blackouts during the weekend. However, when Odette struck down a lot of electric poles and damaged infrastructure, and the possibility of an extended power failure loomed large, we had to reconsider our stand on a genset. Knowing that there are Odette-struck areas that are still without electricity a full month after it made landfall makes it even scarier.
The genset issue was the easiest to solve because of online shopping. There are a lot of ridiculously affordable options online and after figuring out that our house only needs 1KW of emergency power to run the lights, water pump and wifi, we put in an order for the most affordable genset we could find. Just in case Mother Nature takes out the power again. It’s another thing to take care of just in case we need it, but I guess that’s just how we deal with climate change and the extreme weather events that come with it.
Another vulnerability I have been taking for granted and realized because of Odette is the need for regular tree trimming. Spending on tree trimming before the destructive typhoon season starts is better than spending a whole lot more on repairs when an untrimmed tree gives in to powerful winds and parts of it hit the house. When Odette did the trimming this year, we were fortunate that the one big branch she took down thankfully fell in the other direction, instead of hitting our bedroom. I’ll make a reminder to have the trees around our home preventively trimmed or pruned every August or September.
The easiest thing I should’ve done but failed to do when I knew a powerful typhoon was coming was to tidy up our stuff kept outdoors. I guess I was either overconfident or ignorant. Anyway, the next time a typhoon comes our way, I’m putting everything that can’t be tied down indoors. As a flapping GI sheet kept me up most of that night, frightening me with “Final Destination” thoughts of it flying around and decapitating people or slamming into the house, random GI sheets and plywood boards from past repair jobs are going to be stored properly from now on.
The Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to the devastating effects of climate change. Until the global community finds a way to slow down or reduce global warming, stronger storms, bigger floods, and hotter droughts are part of the future that we have to be ready to face. We have no choice but to gird ourselves to protect our homes and loved ones.*
