Preparing for the worst

LONDON — Just my luck – incessant rains have poured across England and Wales in recent days, swelling rivers and causing the worst flooding that Brits, especially those in the northwest, have seen in recent years. 

London doesn’t get flooded, but last Monday was rainy. With winter approaching, it starts getting dark here at past 4 p.m., and the rains made the short day even bleaker. Yesterday the rain finally started subsiding.

Brits are no strangers to flooding. Weather authorities issued hundreds of flood warnings, and residents said they did prepare, moving furniture to higher areas.

But no one was sufficiently prepared for the magnitude of the flooding, which reminded me of what we get regularly every year in Metro Manila and other parts of the Philippines. One woman interviewed by BBC described the flooding in the UK as “the most awful” while the prime minister described it as “shocking.”

There were scenes of residents using buckets in what was a futile attempt to bring down the water level inside their home. By Sunday night, as the rain resumed pouring, the disaster was described as a “national flood crisis.”

Again, it reminded me of home when it was reported that a 1.7-million-pound (about P111.7 million) water pumping facility for flood defense in one area failed to work. See, we are not alone. On the defensive, the environment minister said they had spent 2.71 billion pounds (about P178 billion) on flood control and would be spending 71 million pounds (P4.7 billion) more.

Across the planet, people are accepting that they have to live with the consequences of climate change. As the woman interviewed by the BBC said, “This is our life from now on… (we have to) be prepared for the worst.”

Residents are now considering ways of fortifying their homes and communities against floods. No, they’re not banning plastic bags; these are widely used here. But the government is boosting floodwater-pumping capability.

Some nations cope with natural calamities better than others. The Dutch, for example, have become leading experts in flood control, through an ingenious system of land reclamation and top-of-the-line water pumping systems.

With our country visited regularly by almost every natural calamity imaginable, we should have become experts a long time ago in disaster management. Instead we always seem to be caught by surprise by every catastrophic earthquake, typhoon, flood, landslide and, more recently, storm surge.

We have water pumping stations in Metro Manila, but they broke down in the last major flood.

A recent scientific report commissioned by the World Bank showed that the Philippines is one of 10 developing countries most vulnerable to severe flooding from rising sea levels due to global warming. The 10 countries lack the resources and capability to prepare for and recover from the destructive consequences of climate change, according to the report.

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On the brighter side of my visit to the UK, it was lucky for me that on Sunday when I had time to do all the touristy stuff in this vibrant city, the sun was out for much of the day and the wind and autumn temperature were mild.

London’s blend of Old World charm and hip pop culture has made it the most visited city in the world (based on international arrivals). The tourists were out in force last Sunday, from all over the planet, speaking in many tongues. They were also out in droves even on cloudy, rainy Monday.

Traveling alone, I took the London Underground to the hop-on, hop-off bus terminal in Westminster. Although there were huge crowds at every tourist site on Sunday, everything was orderly and efficient. Tourism is a highly developed industry in this country.

I kept running into Filipinos; there are about 200,000 of us in the UK. In the Kensington neighborhood I spotted a Manila Supermarket across the Pinoy Super Market. Nearby was a Divisoria Market. A Filipino Restaurant (that’s the name) announced its “winter special” – bilo-bilo or glutinous ground rice balls.

The tour guides were knowledgeable and droll English humor can be hilarious. A prominent personality in our tourism industry told me several months ago that we lack such efficient guides who are well-versed in Philippine culture. I was also told that an attempt to bring in double-deck tourist buses got bogged down in red tape.

The bus tour included references to England’s most popular new exports: sites featured in Skyfall, the latest James Bond movie, and the City of London School, which Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe attended.

From the Tower Bridge I took the ferry cruise (free with the hop-on, hop-off bus) on the River Thames. The river is murky and only drunken hooligans will want to swim in it, but there’s no floating solid waste. As in many other countries, several of the most important structures – and tourist sites – are built along London’s main body of water. The latest attraction, inaugurated only last July, is The Shard, a skyscraper designed like an irregular pyramid by renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano. With 95 stories, it is currently the tallest building in the European Union.

Heavily used for commercial purposes, and polluted since the Industrial Age, these rivers can’t be expected to be cleaned up enough in the near future for swimming, much less for the survival of fish. But they can be clean enough not to stink like a cesspool. When there’s no stink, it’s possible to develop some riverside areas into popular promenades. This is something people have been trying to do in parts of Metro Manila, and there’s hope because the campaign to clean up the Pasig has had some success.

The biggest deterrent to riverside development along the Pasig is, of course, the prospect of torrential flooding. Any riverside development will have to include a flood defense system that works better than the one for Metro Manila.

In a flooded area of England, TV footage showed residents taking photos of their rampaging river, brown with mud and carrying away household debris and uprooted trees.

Around the world, bizarre weather is taking people by surprise. Some people forget devastating floods as soon as they subside. Others, such as those in the flood-stricken UK communities, are busy mapping out their defenses for future inundations. As one elderly woman asked, amid reports that the weather would be getting better, “What if it happens again?”