It means nothing unless people act.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Typhoon exposed limits of Warning System." In the article it talked about a new LIDR system that will replace the existing Doppler radar system in the Philippines used to do the same thing: forecast an incoming storm, but do so with added bells and whistles that will enhance early warning capabilities.

I find it strange that in the midst of ongoing recovery efforts, the government continues to invest in advanced weather forecasting technology, as if it were a limitation of technology that caused the loss of life and not a failure of the framework designed to prevent it. From everything that I've read and from the reports that have come out, the warnings weren't the problem. Days in advance of Yolanda making landfall, there were warnings from the government and PAGASA indicating that this wasn't going to be your average storm, and implored that people respond by evacuating. While the article acknowledges that community action based on the forecasts is needed, it feels like the upgrade to the LIDR system is spending money and resource on addressing something that wasn't broken to begin with, while failing to acknowledge where the real vulnerability lies--in connecting with and empowering communities to take action once information is known.

How is it that a country that averages 20 typhoons a year not know "the drill"? Leading up to Sandy's landfall, people didn't leave because they didn't believe the warnings would match the dire reality forecasted. After communities weather 1,2...or 20 storms, complacency, or hubris can affect their attitude towards the real danger these storms represent. However, it wasn't until I saw this video report from the Wall Street Journal that a new aspect of why people didn't heed to warnings as they should have came to light. As part of the warnings that came from PAGASA, the term "storm surge" was used to describe the tsunami-like wall of water that did so much of the damage; something many Filipino's didn't fully understand. One gentleman in the video goes as far as to call the term "english" and ignored the reality it represented.

While I have no doubt that confusion and unfamiliar terminology surrounding the most deadly aspect of Yolanda's impact played a role in the massive loss of life, I wonder why, given the history Filipino's have with enduring typhoons and the dangers they represent, more widespread proactive action wasn't taken as a precautionary measure.

As recovery gets underway, many are looking to understand where the breakdown occurred and why more action wasn't taken at the local level. If warnings were issued, and a storied history of Category 5 Typhoon's hitting the Philippines known, with Typhoon Bopha hitting last December, why wasn't more done to move people out of harm's way? And why is a technological upgrade seen as a move that will help mitigate loss of life when the reason people failed to leave had more to do with protection of personal property than skepticism surrounding Yolanda's forecasted impact?

Technology is a tool. Higher resolution maps are great, early warnings with higher probabilities on storm impacts and locations are even better; however (insert broken record here) if the people who stand the most to gain (i.e. not die) from the information that these newfangled systems provide are not paying attention or don't care, then you might as well not have any warning system at all. The problem hasn't been the ability to forecast a storm--it's been communicating it in such a way that generates action and interest amongst the people who it will impact.

In Mississippi and Louisiana, people didn't leave when Katrina was bearing down because they didn't believe it was going to be as bad as the forecasts warned. In Galveston when Ike hit, people didn't believe that the island would be all but washed away. In New York, people heeded the warning when Irene blew ashore and when Sandy came, pushing a significant storm surge, people stayed and payed the price. In each of those instances we knew; we knew because history told us, the Army Corps of engineers warned us, and because modern day meteorology showed us where, when, and how severe. To continue to say that advances in severe weather forecasting are mitigating the loss of life and helping people be better prepared, at least where Typhoons and Hurricanes are concerned, is a load of crap. The technology currently used to forecast is sufficient, it's the ability of those whose responsibility it is to turn that information into action at a community level is where the challenge lies. While it's easy to point the finger, I recognize that motivating any large group of people to act is no small task...but when you have history, science, and the blunt trauma of reality on your side...I have to believe that more can and should be done.

Advanced systems and fancier graphics are great but when the dust settles and it's up to friends, neighbors, and search and rescue teams to shoulder the grim burden of counting the dead, the flashy 3D modeling doesn't mean a thing.

If disaster preparedness and risk reduction initiatives can't take hold in the Philippines, a country continually rocked by Earthquakes, Volcanic eruptions, and Typhoons...why would Anytown, USA devote one dollar more than was absolutely necessary to Preparedness if they haven't experienced a disaster in recent memory?

The unfortunate circumstances that have brought us to this moment are tragic...but lets not let this opportunity to champion the preparedness cause slip through our fingers. We need to be able to point to a success story...to be able to show the value in investing in education programs and Disaster Risk Reduction, if there is any hope of it taking hold in vulnerable communities around the world, especially those in our backyards.

International Disaster Response is a cluster...

The Philippines, an archipelago comprised of 7,000+ islands, is a paradise where the warmth and friendliness of the Filipino people make it a top travel destination. When Yolanda mowed her way across the island chain and it became apparent that it was going to be an event requiring significant humanitarian response, aid organizations put out appeals for donations and sent in assessment teams to figure out how best to provide their special brand of assistance.

With the overwhelming need created by the Typhoon, coordinated response remains a top priority. But how do you coordinate that many moving parts? In the U.S., coordination is a consistent challenge faced by federal, state, local, and community-based response structures. Internationally, aid organizations, foreign and domestic military assistance, and agencies representing the alphabet soup of UN agencies also need to be taken into account on top of everything else. With millions affected, thousands dead, and hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed across multiple island communities, where do you begin, how do you begin, and who's in charge?

The international humanitarian aid community has something that we in the United States do not--something that helps alleviate a lot of the guesswork around how the response will be shaped so that the focus can be on the provision of aid to those in need. On the premise of improving humanitarian response in emergencies, the United Nations (UN) created the IASC (the InterAgency Standing Committee), and in 2005 the Cluster System for coordination in humanitarian emergencies was adopted. The cluster system provides a scalable and replicable way for handling the delicate dance of leadership and coordination based around functional needs in response operations.

Cluster Overview

The thematic focus of the cluster system alleviates confusion around roles and responsibilities and makes it easier to highlight competency within a specific response function. While clusters aid in the dissemination and consumption of operational data, they also create unique funding opportunities. Because of the way the cluster system is structured, pooled funds managed by the UN are available to help support humanitarian operations and are oftentimes granted through the cluster system:

• The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)
• The Common Humanitarian Funds (CHFs)
• Emergency Response Funds (ERFs)

Because complex humanitarian emergencies require so many aid organizations working together, a system to coordinate their activities is needed without limiting their independence. The Cluster System, for any faults it may have, is a system that has the buy-in needed and the ability to fill the most critical of role's--coordination that enables a stronger and more cohesive response.

While every system has its proponents and detractors, the fact that there's a unified system to point to is a big accomplishment. Domestically, emergency support functions (ESFs) would be the mechanism that plays a role most similar to that of the clusters, but unfortunately I think that the cluster system succeeds in combining the focus of ESFs with the coordinative function of a VOAD.

Coordination will always present a challenge to governments, municipalities, donors, and any other moving component involved in the disaster response machine. For whatever faults it may have, I applaud the IASC for endorsing the cluster system and for the organizations who operate within it's framework...I look forward to seeing all the good it can do in expediting a coordinated response to the communities struggling in the aftermath of Yolanda.

A way forward for the Philippines

You can only look at so many images of flattened homes and decimated communities or hit the refresh button so many times for updated information on damage estimates before it gets too macabre. While finding fault in this is hard, as I find infographics to be a useful and engaging tool for communicating information, the slick packaging of human misery doesn't feel appropriate at this juncture. I realize the inherent hypocrisy in this sentiment given that my last post praised the Filipino government for quickly publishing quantifiable data on the storms impacts, and it's precisely that information that makes communication pieces like this one possible...but what can I say, I'm fickle.

So instead of waiting for updated stats to tell me what I already know, that this is a major humanitarian crisis, I began to think about how the Mid-Atlantic region would fair if a storm like Yolanda were to hit. The tale of the tape shows that Sandy was a Cat 1 storm with sustained winds of 75mph, and Yolanda a Cat 4/5 with sustained winds of 150 mph with gusts over 170mph. But the damage in the Mid-Atlantic wasn't due to the winds, it was due to the storm surge; Sandy brought a surge of roughly 10ft to coastal communities and went inland for distances measured in blocks. Yolanda's surge was thought to be between 15-20ft and in some cases wiped whole island communities off the map. Drawing these comparisons doesn't change the reality millions of people in the Philippines or the mid-Atlantic region are facing, but it does help by providing perspective. And while far from scientific, the below image is what Yolanda would look like if it made landfall along the eastern seaboard--covering roughly 1200 miles while Sandy's diameter was approx. 950 miles.

Credit: Derek Medlin / Google Earth

So what's being done? If you go by the media's account, aid is slow to arrive and there is confusion on the ground. Some articles go as far as to chastise aid agencies for not learning from past events: The Haiti Earthquake or The Japan Quake/Tsunami. Articles alluding to the fact that response agencies are fumbling the ball resulting in delays in the disbursement of aid began as frustrations amongst survivors reached a fever pitch. What is often overlooked is that it's day 5 following a major event with a significant impact not only on the fabric of communities, but on the infrastructure that allows those communities to function on a daily basis. When that infrastructure is disrupted, its restoration and the delivery of aid that follows will take longer than a business week to bring online.

In addition to the push to reconnect supply chains that will facilitate the flow of aid, OCHA has created an action plan, with objectives, goals, dollar requirements, and lead agencies charged with making it happen. So I guess if you come up with a comprehensive plan to begin to bring order to the chaos, you get a pass and can publish infographics whenever you want.

The plan is based on the cluster system being implemented and while the plan will undoubtedly go through revisions, it's nice to read about a way forward, about a plan to deal with the monumental effort of bringing normalcy back to these impacted communities. I hope that the issuing of this plan marks a turning point in the reporting on the event and that news agencies will choose to dig a little deeper and find stories that highlight a way forward rather than to rehash the horrible tragedy that's already happened.

https://philippines.humanitarianresponse.info/document/typhoon-haiyan-action-plan

Learning from the past is how we avoid having history repeat itself, but now is not the time for finger pointing or assigning blame. Now is the time to use the resources available to ensure that no further loss of life occurs while laying the foundation for a response to an event that will take years to fully recover from.

Quantifying Damage - Response by Numbers

Credit: Noel Celis / AFP / Getty Images

What is there to say that hasn't already been said? A tragedy has befallen the Philippines archipelago, as of 6am Monday 11/11/13 the NDRRMC is reporting:

• 255 Individuals have died | 71 Injured | 38 Missing
• 9,679,059 Persons Affected
• 23,190 Homes impacted (13,473 destroyed | 9,717 damaged)

A greater level of detail can be found here: http://www.ndrrmc.gov.ph/

And while the statistic that 10,000 lives have possibly been lost is dominating headlines, the fact remains that you can point to a document that several federal agencies stand behind with a concrete number 4 days after an event of historic proportions that says otherwise.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the rest of the agencies that populate these reports are an example of the power timely information can have following an event. While the numbers are in flux as this is an ongoing humanitarian emergency, the information that has been made available is very detailed and provides insight that many response organizations are not used to having at this stage. Usually emergency response is typified by a vacuum of reliable information…Day 4 of response to Yolanda seems to be bucking that trend with agencies providing a comprehensive level of information on a range of aspects central to response and aiding in the creation of situational awareness.

Situational Awareness is key to decision-making and resource allocation and its absence is one of the issues that is repeatedly brought up when emergency management and nonprofits talk about the how to enhance response and early recovery operations. Situational awareness is dictated by how quickly information is funneled up from the ground to create a picture of how events have impacted an area. The detailed information coming from heavily impacted provinces in the Philippines has and continues to be incredible. And while numbers help to give a snapshot of what's going on, it's breaking that information down into data that aid organizations can use that remains illusive. 

With the understanding that numbers aren't representative of the whole story, imagine if counties could produce detailed situation reports days following an event and how that could impact response efforts. At it stands, unless a disaster is federally declared prior to and event or while it's ongoing, gathering the necessary information to support a federal declaration request can take weeks. If municipalities had the ability to compile comprehensive damage information similar to what’s coming out of the Philippines, the speed at which a Governor could submit a declaration request could be considerably shortened and ultimately expedite the delivery of federal aid when applicable.

While numbers can tell you that 90% of the structures in a community have have been destroyed, they can't tell you how best to go about cleaning up or rebuilding a sense of community. For all the advances in technology that create greater efficiencies in communications, coordination, and reporting, the work done to clean up and build back following a disaster remains firmly on the shoulders of people.

In lieu of being on the ground, I hope that aid will begin to flow quickly to the areas of greatest need and those who need help receive it.