RIGHT NOW, sports venues and schools are the default evacuation centers. The impact on schools is incredibly disruptive because while the evacuees are on campus, classes cannot resume, are delayed, or are affected — further complicating the lives of the residents and students.
But here’s one encouraging development – the House of Representatives approved on second reading House Bill 7354 establishing evacuation centers in every city and municipality. It also sets standards and parameters involving site location and facilities design.
The specialized nature of the evacuation centers’ design and specifications would make these facilities ideal venues for prepositioned storage of disaster relief aid, relief goods repacking and distribution, child and maternal health, gender and development, medical missions, and continuing nutrition and health checkup of poor residents.
When evacuees go there, all the disaster relief services and facilities are already there, ready to serve them. This is the efficiency and effectiveness of having specially-designed evacuation centers. These facilities will be in use the whole year round. They will not be empty white elephants infra.
Heavy rains and floods usually have only a few days of disruptive impact, so people can usually be temporarily sheltered at the covered courts, where they stay for the weekend or less than a week. But calamities like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides have a long-duration impact on evacuees, so it takes weeks to return to normal for the evacuees and the community. Having dedicated evacuation centers in every city and municipality can address this.
