CDRRMC updates earthquake, hydromet contingency plans

Members of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) approved two separate resolutions for the Summer Capital’s updated contingency plans for earthquake and hydrometeorological hazards during its 4th Quarter Full Council Meeting held Nov. 25.

Among the salient changes in the contingency plans were the increase in number of Response Clusters during disasters from six to eight.

Particularly, the Response Cluster are: Health; Evacuation Management; Logistics; Emergency Telecommunications; Search, Rescue, and Retrieval (SRR); Management of the Dead and the Missing (MDM); Law and Order; and, Infrastructure.

Louie Glenn Lardizabal, Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Officer III who presided over the meeting explained that council members during the contingency planning workshop held previously have agreed to detach into three separate clusters the MDM, Law and Order and SRR.

“This is to ensure that our responders are not overwhelmed with their functions and avoid overlapping of duties among departments and national line agencies in charge of specific services,” Lardizabal said.

The Roads and Bridges Cluster earlier identified in the past contingency plans of the city was likewise renamed into Infrastructure Cluster.

Each of the clusters have prepared an operational plan to ensure proper coordination and collaboration among departments and offices involved in disaster response.

Timely updating of the city’s disaster response contingency plans ensures that CDRRMC is aligned with the climate resilience goals of the administration as mandated under RA 10121, otherwise known as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010. – JM Samidan