Bracing for rain

As the year comes to a close, more rains are being experienced in Central Visayas. Just recently, all local disaster risk reduction management offices have been busy in preparing for typhoon Urduja. By Thursday, a public storm signal warning was raised in northern Cebu and intermittent rains have been experienced in Metro Cebu. Although it wasn’t a heavy downpour, minimal rain can now result in heavy floods, damage to property and in some areas, landslides. This does not seem to be an appropriate time, especially with the looming Christmas season.

While it is true that rains are now in the region, we should not always believe what has been circulating in social media. The international news of the super typhoon that was supposed to have passed through the country has been making rounds again in social media. This created panic among those who believed that a typhoon as strong as Yolanda would hit again. Though it may not qualify as fake news as the news really was factual, it was already outdated. News as it is, for it to be real, must have the value of being urgent.

Sharing information like this is somehow disrespectful to those who have been monitoring the track of the typhoon and other weather disturbances day and night. They leave their families in the wee hours of the morning to be at the command center so their area can be prepared for whatever disaster may happen. Instead of safely sleeping sound, they choose to render their service so others would be safe as well. It’s better to be always alert, than be too late and sorry.

So it’s best if we verify our information on social media with the legitimate pages of the agencies in charge of monitoring the weather. Instead of ranting, we can coordinate with our local barangays on what to do and how we can also help our community. The barangay is the smallest unit of society but also the first responder during times of calamities. We just hope that there will be no untoward incident, as the year comes to a close.

In the following weeks, we should brace for more rain. PAGASA has forecasted that we might be experiencing La Niña and there will be more rains than ever. This time, we must take all we have learned about disaster preparedness to heart. We cannot just sit down and laugh the situation off. With unpredictable weather due to climate change, it pays to be always on our feet. Research, verify and pay attention –these simple steps won’t harm one in ingesting information about the weather.

The holidays will soon come and we are also facing another problem in the metro, and that’s traffic. However, they go together. Solving transportation woes is another story. Rains may be not harmful to us but it may have an effect when we believe right away and not take proper action with verified information.