Technical knockout

Some of the survivors from the catastrophe that is Tacloban are saying that so many more people would probably still be alive today had they fully understood what the term storm surge meant. Had they been told that a storm surge can have the same catastrophic effects as a tsunami, they would have promptly fled.

Throughout their history as a people, the people of Leyte and Samar have borne the brunt of every storm that came their way. Geographically situated in the path of most typhoons, these people have no choice but to be as hardy as whatever fury nature chooses to unleash upon them.

But while everybody kept track of typhoons, and drew inspiration from every retelling of stories of survival, nobody kept watch over the changing climes. Climate change remained too scholastic and technical, and thus too slippery and remote for the easy grasp of most common people.

Not that climate change is totally Greek to most people. But pray tell, how many do you think among the ordinary folk can go beyond the general description of climate change as “nausab na gyud ang panahon.” In other words, beyond the literal translation, almost nobody really knows what deeper meanings climate change holds.

And so, for the people of Tacloban, a storm surge, for those who actually heard the term used in weather forecasts in relation to the approach of Yolanda, it probably meant seawater coming in. Nobody took it in the context of rising sea levels and the viciously increasing forces that modern typhoons are generating.

This is not to blame Pagasa for the disaster, but in the absence of any visual representation or contextualization of what a storm surge can become in the path of the most powerful storm in history, the people of Tacloban who have survived storm after storm decided to simply try to survive this one too.

Of course, Pagasa cannot be expected to issue a tsunami alert because a tsunami and a storm surge are two entirely different things. Tsunamis are generated by earthquakes and Pagasa experts naturally would not want to get into hot water over the technical discrepancy or worse, end with a lot of red faces.

Well, we now ended with a lot worse -- a lot of dead bodies. And that is sad because raising the alarm about something that is akin to a tsunami is not the same as actually raising a tsunami alert. Surely Filipinos are not too dense not to figure out the difference. Pagasa simply did not want to take the risk.

But that is precisely what happened. By preferring to be sticklers for regularity and technicality, Pagasa lost the golden opportunity to make people understand new things the easy way. If it had simply said a storm surge ahead of the most powerful storm on earth can be like a tsunami, more people would be alive today.

A tsunami, given the many visual examples people have seen on tv, needs no further explanation. If somebody simply said a storm surge can have the same effects as a tsunami, people would have seen in their mind's eye what that means, no ifs and buts, and would have taken more appropriate precautions.

In fact, the best example of why people are likely to flee in face of a tsunami is what happened to Cebu during that infamous “Chona Mae” incident of Feb. 6, 2012. On that day, a powerful earthquake struck Negros just off the very narrow Tañon Strait that separates that island from Cebu.

The quake was of a magnitude that normally generates a tsunami. And so an over-eager Phivolcs, perhaps still mesmerized by pictures of how a tsunami ravaged Japan just months earlier, promptly issued an urgent tsunami alert. Quite unthinkingly, if I may add.

There is no argument Phivolcs was correct in assessing that a 6-plus magnitude earthquake can generate a tsunami. But in its rush to judgment based on set standards, it failed to consider that tsunamis happen only in large bodies of water. Tañon Strait where the quake struck is too narrow to generate one.

But because Phivolcs chose to be very technical and take to its set standard that a 6 magnitude quake can generate a tsunami, it went ahead with the alert, notwithstanding the fact that, in the vastness of the universe, the Tañon Strait is just a hairline and the water it holds may be like that in a soda cap.

And so that tsunami alert remained glued on tv screens nationwide. By the time Phivolcs realized what it had done and had the alert recalled off tv screens, the damage was already done. Some smart aleck who had too much time on his hands, began roaming around Cebu City on a bike, screaming tsunami.

Of course in his court defense -- yes, he got sued -- he claimed he was merely shouting for Chona Mae, his daughter. But to those badly shaken by the quake, and still remember vividly the images of the Japanese tsunami, anyone shouting something like tsunami after a big quake is enough. We all know what happened next.