EDITORIAL - An ounce of prevention

Heavy rains the other day caused several landslides in some of the city's mountain barangays, a few of them cutting off or at least hampering their only link by land transportation to the city.

While there had been no casualties in these incidents, the increasing frequency with which they are occurring leaves many to wonder why nobody has taken a proactive stance regarding these incidents.

In the United States and in other Western countries, the authorities are very proactive in their stance regarding almost anything. It is the thinking in these countries that if anything can go wrong, something should at least be done to either prevent them or minimize their effect.

For instance, in the state of Arizona, the roads going down from its side of the Grand Canyon have what it calls " runaway ramps. " These are roads that cars and other vehicles that lose their brakes can turn into in order to be stopped as these roads go into a gradual incline.

In most highways in America, signs announcing some road repair are not placed at the very hole where a digging is taking place, like we do in the Philippines. Signs warning of diggings are interspersed every mile for at least five miles ahead of the actual diggings.

As to landslides, the state of California, for example, has a road engineering team whose only work is to check all mountain highways for dangerous outcrops of rocks and boulders or areas where loose soil can pose a serious threat of a landslide.

When the team locates a place where the threat of a landslide is imminent, it then eliminates the threat by, for instance, blowing up the suspect boulder. A crew is on standby to clear away the debris in minutes and the highway is passable and safe in almost no time.

Precautionary work such as this may cost us money. But it will prove to be far less expensive than if we wait for disaster to strike. Then we will really have to pay through the nose for the loss of lives, property and economic opportunities.