People inexplicably seem to have a fatalistic view over calamity warnings that do not materialize. Whenever such warnings are issued and the dire forecasts go pfft, people promptly rise to flog those who issued the alerts, as if they would rather have it the other way.
Interestingly, I thought only Filipinos were of this particular mold. In fact I can still remember the anger with which Filipinos always greet each each storm forecast that does not bring the dreaded calamity in its wake.
The attitude is that warnings, and the consequent preparations, are a waste if a storm does not live up to its billing. It is as if we bet in favor of projections that are right on the button and do not derive any relief from the fact that our lives have not been jeopardized.
During the mayhem that followed Ondoy and the other storms that came one after the other, including the floods generated by the release of water from dams in Luzon, there were even some who ridiculously proposed that we do away with dams altogether.
With the country now severely parched by the drought brought on by El Niño, and Filipinos now longingly looking at whatever water is left in dwingling volumes in those dams, I cannot help but wonder where that nut is now who once proposed we dynamite all our reservoirs.
But while I have now been mercifully numbed by such antics, I must admit to have been caught by real surprise on learning that people all across the Pacific basin have similarly been discomfitted by the fact that tsunami projections did not produce the anticipated killer waves.
Oceanographers and meteorologists all over the Pacific basin were forced to declare a tsunami alert across the area in the wake of the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile last Saturday.
The beauty of tsunami warnings is that, unlike earthquakes which cannot be amply and precisely forewarned, they are able to give time for people to escape. People are given the chance to escape with their lives.
But the tsunami warnings that came in the wake of the Chile quake were, in the words of the cynics, a big fat egg. They were a dud. They did not produce the giant waves that the people had feared.
So? Are we supposed to blame the oceanographers and meteorologists for the wrong message? Instead of considering the absence of giant waves as a blessing, people across the Pacific basin, and not just Filipinos, are now acting as if they would have wanted the waves to come.
I would prefer for the experts to err on the side of caution and let me get on with my life intact despite the hassles and anxieties of preparation and anticipation than for the same experts to have been proven right and see my life in shambles.
Rather than us condemning the wrong projections, experts should in fact be encouraged to step up and improve their warnings. The world as we know it today is no longer the same calm world we knew before, a world of less natural tantrums and devastation.
The world of today is being skewed, in large part, by our abuse and neglect and is fighting back by means of deadly environmental surprises brought on primarily by climate change. All known projections over the past many decades have been wiped clean. Nobody knows anymore.
With experts being hounded by increasing unpredictability in nature, the prudent thing to do would be to heed warnings and not sneer at them because, for whatever they are worth, they are like second chances being given in advance. We ought to grab them while we can.