Shelly Ryn M.

Saligumba 11- Banzon

Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction

Quarter 1- Module 3: Disaster and Its Effects

What I Know/ Assessment

1. D 7. A 13. C

2. B 8. B 14. A

3. A 9. A 15. C

4. N/A 10. A

5. C 11. A

6. A 12.C

What’s In

Calamity/ Disaster Your Feeling

1. 2019–20 Philippines polio outbreak Sad because the virus spreads from person to
person and can infect a person's spinal cord,
causing paralysis (can't move parts of the body).
2. 2019 Visayas earthquake Concerned and sad about the people who are
affected by it.
3. 2019 Philippines measles outbreak Concerned because it is highly contagious illness
caused by a virus that replicates in the nose and
throat of an infected child or adult. 
4. 2020 Taal Volcano eruption Stressed, sad and concerned

5. COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines Sad, afraid, infuriated, irritated

What’s New

What troubling situations reminded you of the scenarios?

The situations that reminded me of the scenarios are the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of manpower in
handling the pandemic, and loss of jobs.
What’s More

1. The possible effects to the family are displaced populations, health risks, food scarcity, and emotional
aftershocks. The advice that I am going to give him is that this is just a bend, not the end. There is always
hope for a better tomorrow.

2. The possible effects to the family are displaced populations, health risks, food scarcity, and emotional
aftershocks. She can be helped by offering love and support to your bereaved friend or loved one for
who they are and who they will become as he or she adjusts to the difficult, unfair loss of a child.

3. The potential impact of the increasingly confirmed cases of COVID patients on nurses in the
Philippines are the health risks that they are exposed to the virus and emotional aftershocks of the
patient’s condition getting worse or even death.

What I Have Learned

To ensure that I am prepared to face the possible effects of any disaster that I may encounter in life I
should know/plan the following:

1. Plan for my risk

The first step is to identify the types of disasters you are exposed to, the likelihood of these occurring
and their potential impact. Knowing the most common hazards in your area — particularly if you’re new
to the region — can help you focus your preparation plans for each hazard.

For instance, ask yourself:

 Is my area vulnerable to any natural hazards?

 How often are these hazards likely to occur in my area?
 Which of my assets would be affected?
 To what extent would l be affected financially?
 How would I recover if I did not have insurance?
 How can each disaster be predicted or mitigated?

2. Making a plan

 Steps you can take now to prepare for a disaster

 Know the hazards in your area.
 Review your insurance policies and confirm you have adequate cover against each type of
disaster you are vulnerable to. Also check your sum insured to avoid being underinsured.
 Take a household inventory and store copies in a safe location or online. Cataloging your
belongings with a home inventory might sound tedious, but how easy would it be for you to
recall all the contents of your home if you lost everything? Taking a home inventory can help
 you determine if you have enough insurance and can save you time and headaches when filing a
claim following a disaster
 Prepare a disaster plan. Your plan should start with having somewhere safe to go. Think of
someone who could house you and your family and talk to them about what might happen in
the event of a disaster. Then talk to everyone who lives in your home about what to do if there’s
an emergency and you are unable to return
 Have a communications plan. Consider that your family may not be together if a disaster strikes.
How you will get to a safe place? How will you contact one another? How will you get back
together? You will be better prepared to safely reunite your family and loved ones during an
emergency if you think ahead and communicate with others in advance
 Have an evacuation plan. In some cases when you need to evacuate, there may not be a lot of
time. Plan how to evacuate your home quickly and make sure everyone knows the evacuation
plan. Make sure everyone has a list of emergency contact numbers they can phone
 Practice the steps that are needed to disconnect your home’s gas, water and electricity and
make sure you understand these. If you are able to, learn basic first-aid procedures, which will
allow you to assist others during a natural disaster
 Before any disaster, you should inspect your home and eliminate any potential hazards. In an
emergency, ordinary items in your home can cause injury and damage. Anything that can move,
fall, break or cause a fire is a potential hazard
 Community connections are important. Make sure you know your neighbours. Swap phone
numbers and keep an eye on elderly or disabled neighbours, or people with children – they
might need extra help during a natural disaster
 Make sure to regularly check safety devices in your home, such as smoke alarms and fire
extinguishers
 Speak to your local authorities and emergency services and learn about your community's
emergency plans, warning signals, evacuation routes, and locations of emergency shelters. Local
emergency services will also be able to advise you on the most common types of disaster that
affect your area.

What I Can Do

Before I start my letter, here is the background of the story

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea

438 Days is the miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone
in recorded history—as told to journalist Jonathan Franklin in dozens of exclusive interviews.

On November 17, 2012, Salvador Alvarenga left the coast of Mexico for a two-day fishing trip. A vicious
storm killed his engine and the current dragged his boat out to sea. The storm picked up and blasted him
west. When he washed ashore on January 29, 2014, he had arrived in the Marshall Islands, 9,000 miles
away—equivalent to traveling from New York to Moscow round trip.
For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare
hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he
fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes.

He considered suicide on multiple occasions—including offering himself up to a pack of sharks. But

Alvarenga never failed to invent an alternative reality. He imagined a method of survival that kept his
body and mind intact long enough for the Pacific Ocean to toss him up on a remote palm-studded island,
where he was saved by a local couple living alone in their own Pacific Island paradise.

Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and
rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to
health, this is an epic tale of survival, an all-true version of the fictional Life of Pi. With illustrations,
maps, and photographs throughout, 438 Days is a study of the resilience, will, ingenuity, and
determination required for one man to survive fourteen months, lost at sea.

Dear Ate Charing,

To call Salvador Alvarenga's true survival story of 438 Days: Adrift at sea "extraordinary" just might
be the understatement of the century. His tale is the very epitome of extraordinary and then some. This
is extraordinary, but also terrifying and amazing and shocking and unbelievable. How can it be humanly
possible for a person to survive so long adrift at sea with few supplies? What will this person eat? Where
will they get their drinking water to stave off death from dehydration? Supposing food and water
challenges are addressed, how does a person go about developing a mental toughness, a spiritual and
emotional resiliency to go on in the face of insurmountable odds, immeasurable aching loneliness,
crippling boredom and sensory deprivation?

Jonathan Franklin does a great job here fleshing out Alvarenga's story with as much specific detail as
possible pertaining to the 438 days, but also balances this side of the story with accounts from other
people who have survived long periods at sea highlighting similarities and differences. He also quotes
from scientists and psychologists who have studied survival and the mental, emotional and physical
changes humans undergo in extreme survival situations. This helps put Alvarenga's experience into a
larger, more meaningful context.

The things Alvarenga did and ate and used and thought in order to stay alive! The intrinsic desire to
live really is something special and Alvarenga wants his story to encourage others to never give up...not
only when they are physically stranded in a seemingly hopeless situation but also when they are
struggling emotionally as well.

"Alvarenga questioned if his journey was a life lesson by God. By all reasonable standards, he should
have been dead long ago. Was he being allowed to live for a reason? The only answer Alvarenga could
articulate was that he had been chosen to bring messages of hope to those considering suicide. He
began to recite the lessons aloud. Don't think about death, if you think you are going to die, you will
die. . . . Everything will work out. . . don't give up hope, remain calm. It was the very mantra he had
unsuccessfully attempted to impart to Córdoba. Now he was using it as a guide for his own psychological
survival. What could be worse than being alone at sea? That's what I could tell someone thinking about
suicide. What further suffering could there be than this?"

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea is a well-documented nonfiction account
told by investigative journalist: Jonathan Franklin after he interviewed Alvarenga and several collateral
sources. If you enjoy true stories of survival, this is a great one. It appeals to all the senses and emotions.
I highly recommend it.

My favorite quote:
"Survival is not a passive activity, it's an active pursuit. If you don't work at it, you are screwed. I have a
pet theory that one of the most dangerous things you can do in life is minimize all risks. You fall on your
face, nothing happens, and so when something big happens, you're totally unprepared, you have no tool
kit."

This is a gripping tale of extreme human survival that left me exhausted, humbled, and inspired.

Yours truly,

Shelly Ryn M. Saligumba