Within two months Taiwan has been hit by two typhoons, Soudelor and Dujuan, and every region in Taiwan was struck by the disaster, particularly Taipei-Keelung metropolitan area, where the local government finally declared 29th September a day-off. Despite that the storm in the north showed sign of abating, two key issues, whether or not to take typhoon day-off and cross region decision-making mechanism, has sparked off an intense debate...

　　The Centre releases the following two statements from the perspective of professional risk assessment, and suggests that the key points worthy of review and reflection are not issues such as cross-region coordination and the time of declaration time, nevertheless, the government should adopt the view of “compound disaster risk assessment” to re-design SOP and the cross-region decision-making mechanism. Two statements as follows:

1. In addition to meteorological information, the government should also consider the socio-econ systems as a whole in order to decide whether to take a “day-off to prevent disaster”, and develop the SOP for compound disaster risk assessment.

　　Extreme weather, proved to result from global warming, threatens Taiwan through the increasing power of storm, typhoon, and drought. In response, the government should develop a compound risk assessment mechanism to measure natural disaster in order to react properly according to the different potential disasters in different regions affected by different natural disasters. In addition, the central government should also allow local governments, corporations, schools to have more discretion over an flexible “day-off to prevent disaster.” The traditional mindset of “typhoon day-off” should better be transformed into “day-off to prevent disaster.”

　　The criterion for “typhoon day-off” surely requires professional meteorological information as the basis for decision-making; however, as the natural disaster hits the society, it is also necessary to fully consider the different socio-econ operation systems that vary depending on time and location. Take Typhoon Dujuan for an example, four factors—mid-autumn festival, continuous holidays, home returning, traveling—have a huge impact. The public transportation interruptions, such as the delays of high speed rail and operations stops for all transportation system, left lots of people stranded. Some regions even have had their power and water cut off. The decision of a full day-off in Taipei-Keelung metropolitan area was made on the basis of both meteorological information and the real operating socio-econ systems, nevertheless, the lack of objective standards as to the socio-econ operating systems made it more controversial.

　　Besides, the widely discussed “half day-off” should also be assessed with a more refined framework of disaster prevention. For instance, the day-off should apply to work and school together, and the operating time of banks, stock markets, industries should also be considered. More importantly, the safety of people should be the first priority (falling trees, safety of power systems, public transportation availability). For schools, it is necessary to consider the safety issues such as parents driving kids to school, teachers arriving schools early, school environment safeties, lunch supply. Furthermore, a dengue epidemic in Tainan was made more difficult to control due to the flooding caused by typhoons, and requires an immediate assessment by public health and medical professionalism. Some specific regions should better be allowed more days-off for implementations of disinfection and isolations. The above phenomena show that the government should not remain in more traditional mindset of “typhoon day-off”, but “day-off to prevent disaster” from a concept of “compound disaster risk assessment.”

2. In response to the environmental vulnerability of our country, precautionary principle should be reinforced into decision making, and flexible adjustment to vacation should be allowed.

　　According to the year 2015 report by Standard & Poor's (S&P) on sovereign rating implications of natural disasters, Taiwan, for frequent earthquakes, is listed on the top 10 most vulnerable countries. Furthermore, based on the joint research by Lloyd's of London and Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, Taipei’s exposure to potential economic loss over a ten-year period, resulting from natural catastrophes and manmade risk, is the highest among major global cities, even exceeding the projection for Tokyo and Seoul. These indices suggest that Taiwan government should re-develop the SOP for compound disaster risk assessment. The following are some suggestions:

　　(1) Encourage precautionary measures, particularly for high hazard potential areas to take early and mandatory actions. A classic example of precautionary measure is taken from the early production of Tamiflu vaccine in 2005 before influenza pandemic outbreak in Taiwan. With the island struck by two powerful typhoons, Soudelor and Dujuan, many times of without water crisis have caused considerable inconvenience, and a major crisis arises over the topic of
territorial planning. Therefore, in view of long-term territorial planning, our government should, with respect to water resources, do precautionary planning in response to typhoons, and, with respect to public health and safety, take early and mandatory actions right after assessing the areas of dengue epidemic in Tainan in response to the disinfection and isolations measures.

　　(2) Give local authorities discretion to flexible disaster-prevention days-off. For example, the highly hazard potential areas such as Jiasian in Kaohsiung, or Wulai in Xinbei, which suffer from torrential rains and typhoons, should be able to decide their own “disaster-prevention days-off” without waiting for national or local authorities, enabling the residents to take early actions to prevent disasters.

　　(3) Impose a ceiling on “days of disaster prevention” at national level, and authorize the government to be able to flexibly adjust working days and compensatory holidays so as to maintain the normal operation of the social and economic system.

　　Besides granting authorization to local regions, the whole society and government should learn how to deal with climate catastrophe. Through more comprehensive risk assessment and learning experience, systematic adjustment is hence possible. In the future Taiwan is sure to encounter more dramatic climate change and the environmental, health, social and economic shocks that come along, the government should design and enforce “disaster-prevention territorial Planning” and “disaster-prevention days-off” to reduce the loss of life and properties from the viewpoint of “adapting to and mitigating climate change”, rather than calculate how much loss incurred as a result of disaster.

For more information, please interview the following scholars:
Prof. Kuei-Tien Chou, Chief Director of Risk Society and Policy Research Centre, College of Social Science, National Taiwan University.
Risk Society and Policy Research Centre, College of Social Science, National Taiwan University
2015/9/30
Contact Tel: 02-3366-8422