NSTP

DRRM

Community

a group of socially interacting individuals living together in the barangay, and so on.

Early warning
- the message – signs, words, sounds or images that announces danger before the arrival of a
hazard or threat.

Community EWS (CEWS)

- there is effort by or with a community to manage the early warning system

System

- A regularly interreacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole (Merriam-

webster)
- In this case, the items can be people, processes, and procedures that connect those who collect
and track hazard information and send warning with those who need to hear the early warning.

Four components of a CEWS

 Understand the risks (Hazards and Vulnerabilities) and priorities.

o Establish a systematic process to collect, assess and share data, maps, and trends
o Make map
 Monitor the risks continuously and in an up-to-date manner
o Develop a systematic way to communicate in advance about approaching danger to
those at risk and to coordinate information with various levels of local government
o Signs that show monitors danger
o Water level measurement
 Respond adequately to reduce risks.
o Establish an effective hazard monitoring and warning service with sound scientific and
technological basis
o Warnings and homes
 Communicate warning (Actionable) messages that are understood by those that need to hear
them.
o Educate communities and practice/test safe behavior, available escape routes, and how
best to avoid damage and loss to property.
 o Communication like bells

Review:

 Provide information as it becomes available

 Timely and effective public warnings can minimize panic
 Different spokespersons deliver the same/similar messages
 Warning messages must be concise and complete
 Clearly mark evaluation routes to help people reach the safe shelters

Overall objective of a community ews is to

 Enables individuals threatened by risks to act in sufficient time and in an appropriate manner to
reduce the possibility of personal injury, loss of life and damage to property and the
environment.

Risk

 a function of two inseparable elements

o Hazards and vulnerability
 One of the serious weakness identified worldwide is the inattention on vulnerability in EWS.

Indicators of vulnerability

 People’s income level

 Education background
 Health status
 Livestock
 Livelihoods
 and the like

Closely monitoring these through time and its effect on households is as important as monitoring
indicators of hazard

 Vulnerability must be equal to hazards when you study risks.

o Also means that your DRRM work is closely linked to development efforts in the
community.
  Hazards are borderless.
o do not choose to strike in one area or specific group
o So think in a borderless way too.
o Ex.
 Floods, you can use the watershed approach, which considers the entire region
that drains into a river system.
 Upsteam areas, even if they may not be affected by flood, can help monitor and
alert the downstream areas.
 El Nino, households involved in producing and selling can explore together ways
of learning and responding.
 These relationships can foster a community spirit and save lives

 To keep EWS active and lasting

o ground it on science and indigenous/local/folk knowledge.
 Scientists generate knowledge from their systematic scientific experiments
o (Empirical knowledge)

Communities also “own” oral histories, memory recorded in stories and songs (transmitted knowledge),
as well those they learned from personal experience (experiential knowledge). These three knowledge
streams may be used together to guide and strengthen your community EWS.

Demand for appropriate tech

Technology for early warning is primarily related with monitoring and warning communication because
these components typically use hardware or equipment to achieve their goals.

Our Nat’l govt invested in high-tech equipment to monitor hazards.

As a DRRM practitioner, you can effectively harness our nat’l govt’s investment in high-tech equipment
by demanding from your LGU officials to support capacity building of your communities on how to use
the information generated.

The LGU can also fund the purchase of technology that is appropriate, i.e. easily managed, efficient,
robust, resilient, repairable, etc. at the local level, and support awareness raising and training activities
of the communities.
In community

EWS

 pays to be redudant because the system, though well-prepared, may not be foolproof at the last
minute.
o equipment may not function; signals not received or messages disregarded
o Therefore, we need to be redundant when we (1) monitor the indicators, and (2)
communicate warning messages.
o Factor:
 Tech failure
 Mobile network is down
o What redundant action can you install?
 Use hand-held radio even before the network fails

 Monitoring the risks continuously and in and up-to-date manner

1. Observe
a. Using your senses
i. Sees water along the shore suddenly gets dry
2. Measure
a. the act of recording what you are observing and tracking
i. record water level with rain gauge
3. Predict or forecast
a. expecting what will happen next based on what you observed, measured,
analyzed vis-a-vis agreed thresholds.
i. Based on the speed of the river level rise, your predict it will reach
the red level within the next two hours.
o Knowing your lead time is important in making an effective EWS.
 Lead time
 The time interval you would regularly update measurements and/or
observations regarding a particular disaster.
o PAG-ASA monitors an on-going typhoon within hours/days or
short-term forecasting.
o Hazards and threats can be monitored with varying lead times.
1. Seconds-minutes
 Real-time/now-casting
o Earthquakes
o Flash floods
2. Hours-Days
 Short-term forcasting
 o Storms
o Landslides
o Tsunamis
3. Weeks-months-seasons
 Medium-term forcasting
o Drought
o Extreme temperatures
4. Years
 Long- term forecasting
o Deforestations
o Pollution
o Incorporate multiple timescales of early warning info into your EWS.
o Plan for worst-case scenarios.
o Lead-times would depend also on available credible technology.
 Goes without saying that preparedness is necessary any time of the event.

 Insist on mult-hazard ews

o Compile and understand info, responses and warnings about all hazards that are
pertinent to a given level. From that, the community can generate ideas on how to best
synergize the community efforts in EWS in an economical way.
o Advantages:
 Analyze and prioritize which risks you are exposed to
 Identify the most damaging and most manageable ones.
 Work on your EWS in a more stable, continuous way.
 Save limited human and financial resources.
 Minimize confusion.

 Respond adequately to reduce risks

o What are you responding to/
 Warnings, not disasters

o EWS can prevent disasters happen

 Early warnings instruct you to do a set of responses that prepare for or reduce
the impact of a hazard or disaster.
 Your community is considered “response capable” when they know, have
practiced, and have the means to engage in appropriate response actions.

o How do you respond when you receive a warning?

  It depends on the hazard, warning lead-time, when warning is sent out, and
when the hazard will strike.

 RATS sheet helps community to think about your responses

o Ex. if you heard that a storm is coming in four months,

 Practice to enhance ability to respond

o Organize drills or simulations (part or the whole EWS) at least once a year.
o Assign various roles to participants and have them act out your drills.
o Document experiences from drills and live events so you can avoid making the same
mistakes.

 Communicate warning (Actional) messages that are understood by those that need to hear
them.
o A warning message provides a timely message that reaches, is understood, and is acted
upon by the population at-risk.
o Actors in warning communicators
1. Authors
a. put together the content of the warning message
b. most often the scientific and technical experts
2. Mediators
a. first receivers of messages, usually inside the community
b. makes messages understandable and meaningful
c. transmit message to at risk people
i. play an important role in communication
ii. must develop and refine his skills as interpreter and
communicator by understanding the technical aspect of the
warning and by accounting for recipients’ perceptions, past
experience, and general beliefs/attitudes regarding
disasters.
3. Recipients
a. may not understand technical language
b. audience for the delivered warning message

o How to communicate efficiently

o Map out all possible local options for:
o Devices: the tech used to convey messages can be:
 No tech: drawings, runners, criers, posters, paper
  Low tech: Flags, boards, whistles, megaphones, traditional sounds and
instruments
 Mid tech: SMS, telephone, radios, high frequency radios
 High tech: automatic SMS, TV, internet, and satellite-driven instruments.

How to synergize EWS Gen Nakar

 Church-based NGOs were at the frontline of spiritual formation as the focal point for strong
community participation
 Residents adopted a partnership with the nat’l and local units and other major institution and
entities as an approach
 The community was part of the installation of Early Warning Systems. They used both low tech
and high tech methods
 Communication systems were also installed.
 Community members also formed linkages with PAG-ASA, Manila Observatory, UP National
Institute of Geological Services, and UP-Los Banos.
 Networking> Mobilization> Climate Forecasting
o Networking
 project was linked with local govt units and major institutions that play a major
role in disaster management
o Mobilization
 included raising the capacity of LGUs, local institutions, and people’s
organizations.
 Five Barangay from Infanta, and fifteen from Gen. Nakar have undergone
trainings on DRRM.
o Climate forecasting
 This component was done together with the Manila observatory, U.P, and PAG-
ASA
 Water level measurement was also installed in the same site in Brgy. Magsaysay
and Banugao.
 Project staffs are the ones measuring the speed of the current along the Agos
River to determine the real time flow of river
o Resulted into
 Timely warning on the evacuation of communities
 Closer ties between communities, public and private sector
 Communities take greater responsibilities

Aim for synergy across levels

An early warning system

 a set of capacities needed to collect and disseminate timely and meaningful

warning information that allows at-risk individuals, communities and
organizations to prepare and act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce
harm or loss.