Ketsana's aftermath

Hopefully  by now you have read all the news and video footages of the recent flooding in metropolitan Manila and norther Luzon provinces. For comparison, the rainfall amount in 12 hours was a lot more (measured in mm and not in inches) than what we experienced with Katrina. I have not kept up with the death toll, and scores of people missing. The financial costs of this calamity is still to be determined. We do have to count our blessings in light of the recent earthquake, more lives lost in the recent massive earthquake in Sumatra (that just occurred this week, and flooding in American Samoa).

The easy part is finger pointing and doing the blame game. The following questions do need to be answered:

1. What happened to the study done by Urban Planner Palafox regarding the risks of flooding (I will get the reference page on this study, this was done years ago)?
2. How much of the damaged settlements, e.g., parts of Marikina Valley, or population actually built and settled in 20, 50, or 100-year floodplains?
3. Where was the Disaster Relief and Emergency Response System? Why is there no FEMA-like agency?
4. Why haven't local government units organized even volunteer or non government associations to organize Disaster Preparedness and Local Emergency Response Teams?
5. How much of the flooding caused, or indirectly caused by garbage-choke rivers and estuaries?
6. Are any of the private developments, or buildings insured when these are built on flood plains? Where did they purchase insurance, or were these properties insured, who insured them?

All of these questions are classic PMBOK questions and key project management input variables, or process groups:

• Risk management,
• Proper project planning,
• Risk mitigation,
• Project implementation,
• Budgeting,
• Disaster preparedness, and 
• Disaster response and recovery.

What project are you working on? What are the potential risks? What are the payoffs? Are you prepared for a major catastrophe? What are your risk mitigation plans, and disaster response systems? Easy to ask, very difficult to implement.

Fishing and being seasick

Today being my birthday, I was inundated with greetings (both on the Wall and personal messages via e-mail) on Facebook. (Thanks to the calendar reminder on Facebook, even your 2nd grade classmate remembered to greet me on my birthday.) The common (courteous) question I was asked apart from the greeting, "what kind of fun stuff did you do today?" And I tell the entire story.

This was a trip that had long been planned by my Sales Director, won from a fund raising auction at World Relief back in spring of this year. Due to schedule conflicts and marine forecast, the fishing trip had to be re scheduled a couple of times. Then the day finally came. We are going fishing at 7 am from Winthrop Harbor North Point Marina, on a Saturday. Woke up at 4 am, got out at past 5 am and made the trek from Warrenville to Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. While waiting for someone else, my Sales Director asked me, "so, Bobby, do you ever have problems with sea sickness?" "Bill, I grew up in the Philippines, of course not!" I have been paddling on canoes on mild rivers, rode in canoes with outriggers in Mindanao Sea, have taken a passenger (overnight) cruise ship from Manila back to Butuan, a ferry from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel--of course I have never had problems with sea sickness. (I did remember Captain mention that the waves farther out would be far better than the waves' height further inland.) So I thought I hope we catch Salmon and Trout today, lots and lots of them.

One and half hour after venturing out, and having half eaten a bagel with lox and cream cheese, I started feeling sick. Not wanting to ruin the trip for everyone, I did my best not to lose my breakfast. And the three and a half foot waves felt like ten foot (or more waves, like the Perfect Storm, or it felt like it for me), and this went on for four hours. When the captain finally saw me puking three times, he said "let's head back in" and started to pull the poles. A ruined trip and no Salmon caught. Disappointing, and I felt bad for both Bill and Paul. And the captain has to clean the sides of his boat.

Not sure if it was over confidence or oversight on my part about the risks involved with this trip, the Dramamine might have help prevent nausea and motion sickness. I took two tablets after attempting to reel in the line (thinking we had caught something about two hours into the trip). Pretty obvious it was too late. Lesson learned: what possible risks could come up with a trip or a project. Identify it, take steps to mitigate it, or plain avoid it. With the marine forecast of 3.5 and less than 5 foot waves, it was safe to venture out and go fishing. But it is not for the faint of stomach.