EDITORIAL - A year-round necessity

With some people still missing from the past two cyclones and rebuilding of ruined houses still to start, another storm is expected to hit the country tonight or tomorrow. Weather forecasters warned that Tropical Storm Siony could intensify into a typhoon when it makes landfall.

The monsoon season is over, but tropical cyclones take a break, it seems, only during the peak of summer in this country. Several of the deadliest typhoons have struck in the third quarter of the year, among them Reming in 2006, Pablo in 2012 and Yolanda in 2013.

This makes the provision of decent evacuation centers a year-round necessity. One upside of the distance learning mode that education officials have been forced to adopt due to the coronavirus pandemic is that it has freed up school buildings for other uses. Some have been converted into COVID quarantine facilities. Others are now being used as typhoon evacuation centers, with no urgency to quickly vacate them for the resumption of classes.

While online learning is being implemented, however, the government should consider setting up permanent evacuation centers, at least in the areas that are regularly hit by natural calamities. Among these are Catanduanes, Albay, Eastern Samar and several other provinces along the eastern seaboard that serve as the welcome mat for tropical cyclones that barrel in from the Pacific Ocean. Albay has an additional disaster risk, being home to Mount Mayon, one of the country’s most active volcanoes.

Even before the COVID pandemic, officials of the Department of Education were already urging the government to stop using public schools as evacuation centers. Even gyms, which are usually converted into temporary shelters, are needed by the schools once classes resume.

Such temporary shelters are also lacking in the basic necessities including clean water and sanitation. This lack, coupled with crowding in the typical evacuation center, has often led to disease outbreaks especially among children and the elderly. This poses a serious health risk amid the COVID health crisis. Images from several evacuation centers, and not just in the hardest hit areas, show that the cramped space makes physical distancing impossible. The situation should highlight the importance of setting up permanent evacuation centers.