Metro Manila should learn from New Orleans

We are now 81 years old and we must say that it is the first time in our whole life that we actually saw an old city totally devastated by a typhoon in one day. To make matters worse, the city was New Orleans where many Filipinos settled long, long before the Americans occupied the Philippines. And what made the Katrina destruction of New Orleans real worldwide is, of course, television. Television gave us a glimpse of the September 11 terror-attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The destruction of New Orleans and 9/11 are, in our opinion, the two big tragedies the United States has undergone in its entire history.

The United States survived two world wars without undergoing any attack in their mainland. Now terrorists have succeeded where Germany and Japan failed. And a hurricane has accomplished something that even world wars have spared the United States from – devastation of an entire city. Our impression was that only atomic bombs could do that as attested by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now Katrina has proven that even old cities are not safe from hurricanes.

We hope that Metro Manila is taking steps to ensure that if we are struck by a very bad typhoon, we, at least, took steps to minimize some of its damages. There is very little the government can do to protect individual homes. But they can undertake some projects to minimize the floods that will accompany the heavy rains.

We had many rains in the last few days and sad to say, many places in Metro Manila went under water. How would Metro Manila fare if struck by a tsunami or a very severe typhoon? There is another danger that Metro Manila is open to – a severe earthquake. How would our high-rise buildings fare? Many parts of Manila are right in the earthquake zone. High-rise buildings in such zones should be erected on what is called floating foundations. Our high-rise structures have yet to be tested by an earthquake.

We have been lucky so far. Many Western countries have issued warnings about travel to the Philippines. Yet, we have had no serious terrorist attacks in any of our major cities. A lot of this is thanks to the alertness of our police and Armed Forces.

Let us all hope for the best. But let us all be prepared for the worst that may possibly come.