LLORENTE, Eastern Samar – This town needs more evacuation centers, especially for those living in remote areas that often experience flooding incidents.
This appeal was made by Mayor Daniel Boco who said that an evacuation center is very important to secure a safe temporary shelter for displaced families in times of calamities and disasters as the interior villages are only accessible by trekking which makes it harder for residents to evacuate to the town center.
Of the 33 villages of Llorente, eight interior villages, namely, Hugpa, Waso, Cantomco, Maca-anga, Magtino, Canduros, Burak and Barobo, needs evacuation centers to ensure the safety of residents during flooding.
He said that residents in the town centers have evacuation centers where they can temporarily evacuate in case of a calamity like flooding.
Boco said that while they have already the designs for these evacuation centers what hampers them to do these is due to lack of funds.
According to the town mayor, the water levels in these barangays reaches up to the roofs reason why based on their proposed designs, the ground floors are open.
“As the leader of Llorente, my main concern is the safety of my people. That is why when there are agencies and organizations that visits my town and I know they can help us in terms of funding, we always present to them our plan on building evacuation centers in interior villages,” Boco said.
“We’re hoping that government agencies can provide funding for evacuation centers including construction of river flood control projects. Our town has a minimal budget. It is not enough to fund big projects such as flood control,” he added.
Mayor Boco said that aside from the need of evacuation centers and flood control projects, access road to these interior villages is also important.
He said that while they were able to secure a P10 million funding from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), the amount is still not enough to build access road to the eight remote barangays of Llorente.
Mayor Boco said that among the evacuation centers constructed within the town proper is a three storey facility in Barangay 3 which was built in the amount of P20 million, with the DILG under its Bottom-up Budgeting providing a P20 million funding with the remaining P5 million from the local government unit as their counterpart.
The said facility could accommodate 300 families or 710 persons and provided with amenities like potable water, electricity, comfort rooms, kitchen, laundry area and rooms for couples.
The construction of a new evacuation center in the town proper has minimized the use of classrooms during times of calamities and disaster, the town mayor said.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
