US Embassy conducts seminar on designing disaster resilient communities for EV LGEs

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
September 21, 2010

TACLOBAN CITY  –  The Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners and the Embassy of the United States of America in the Philippines recently conducted a seminar for Disaster Resilient Communities for local government executive and environment planners, at the Marco Polo Hotel in Cebu City.

The seminar was participated by local government executives, regional agency heads and environmental planners from the different provinces of Eastern Visayas. For the province of Leyte, Board Member Roque Tiu was tasked by Governor Petilla to attend in his behalf.

The seminar which was held on September 15, 2010, was facilitated by Dr. Gavin Smith, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disaster of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Ms. Mayu Muñariz, Director of the PIEP on the importance of Environmental Planning and how the workshop was conceptualized.

Mr. Joseph Tordella, Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer of the US Embassy, Manila delivered the welcome remarks while Mr. Elias Fernandez, Jr. gave the Opening Remarks and informed the participants that the seminar aims to incorporate lessons from the Ondoy disaster and in “recognition that we live in a fragile world.”

Dr. Gavin Smith talked on the topic Opportunities for Community Collaboration Across Hazard Management and Climate Change Adaptation. When Dr. Smith took over the podium, he immediately asked, “Is there an opportunity to change things?” He talked about how land use planning can play an important role in hazards mitigation in relation to climate change.

Dr. Smith related the experiences from Hurricanes Fran (1996) and Floyd (1999). He said that risk reduction and disaster recovery was not very difficult because of the availability of federal dollars. After Hurricane Katrina in North Carolina, he worked with Governor’s Office of Recovery and Renewal.

The lessons learned from the US experience include the important role of planning for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction; develop pre-event plans for post-disaster recovery; disaster recovery plans created after an event can succeed under the right condition; invest the time necessary to build a diverse coalition of support for disaster recovery planning.