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IBA, Zambales – Hundreds of families fled low-lying, flood-prone areas in the province on Wednesday as Typhoon Ulysses made its exit over Zambales after wreaking havoc in southern Luzon and parts of Metro Manila last Wednesday.
The Zambales Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (ZPDRRMC) said a total of 537 families consisting of 1,884 people relocated to higher ground as of 7 p.m. Wednesday, when the provincial government ordered the evacuation. preventive against the typhoon that was coming.
Tropical Cyclone Ulysses, which reportedly made landfall for the third time in Quezon province early Thursday morning and crossed central Luzon before exiting Zambales thereafter, recorded maximum sustained winds of 155 km / h near the center and gusts of up to 255 km / h.
Rolex Estella, head of ZPDRRMC, said Governor Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. ordered preventive evacuation, especially in the coastal barangays where residents lived in houses made of lightweight materials.
The largest number of evacuees, with a total of 444 families and 1,586 people, came from Sta. Cruz, the northernmost town in Zambales that has a large fishing community. A large number of them were housed at Bolitoc Primary School, with a total of 430 evacuees, and at Lipay Secondary School, which hosted 424 people.
Estella said that in addition to Sta. Cruz, nine other cities here reported minimal evacuation. They are Castillejos and Palauig, both with 26 families each; Botolan and San Narciso, with 10 families each; Subic, eight; Masinloc, seven; Cabangan, three; San Antonio, two; and San Marcelino, one.
Of the 537 families evacuated, 18 stayed outside the evacuation centers or sought refuge with relatives, the ZPDRRMC also reported.
The weakened typhoon toppled trees and power poles in various parts of the province, as shown in social media posts from local government units, but these were immediately removed by local disaster response units, Estella said. He added that all roads in the province remained passable after the storm despite minimal flooding in some “perennial” flood-prone areas along the Zambales highway.
