The town of Amlan, which had earlier received a Seal of Good Housekeeping award from the Department of Interior and Local Government, has shown that preparing for a disaster can pay off.
When it became certain that Sendong would affect Negros Oriental, the town of Amlan immediately ordered forced evacuations for residents living in pre-identified disaster-prone areas.
“We learned our lesson from the February 2009 flood that disaster preparations have to be barangay-based,” Amlan Mayor Bentham dela Cruz said.
The 2009 flood, which also affected other towns and cities in the province, caught the town’s Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council by surprise because they were thinly spread out and were unable to respond to calamities in upland barangays.
With the implementation of the barangay-based disaster teams, the local government embarked on regular training programs which focused on a zero-casualty rate in the event of calamities.
“We have identified the potential risks of our town and we deem the risk to be water-related because aside from being a coastal town, we have two big rivers,” dela Cruz said.
Residents of disaster-prone areas were evacuated and given food but were allowed to return to their homes after the storm struck.
As of Thursday, dela Cruz said only one family remained at the evacuation center.