- Capitol forms an El Niño task force and names eight towns most at risk, Carcar not among them
- The amihan season has started, but El Niño will keep it warmer than usual
- DOH 7 puts hospitals on Code White from 31 October to 3 November, and warns about the heat at cemeteries
- Visayas grid on red alert again on Wednesday evening, with 25 plants out
Capitol forms an El Niño task force and names eight towns most at risk, Carcar not among them
Governor Pamela Baricuatro signed Executive Order 57 on Monday, 26 October, creating a provincial task force for the coming El Niño. It has 15 days to hand the governor a risk map and priority actions, and local disaster officers meet again on 26 November. The provincial disaster office named eight places as historically the most vulnerable: Tuburan, Daanbantayan, Catmon, Carmen, Borbon, Sogod, Tabuelan and Bogo City, within 183 at-risk barangays across 25 towns. The order builds on the Capitol's ₱200 million El Niño plan issued on 8 October, which puts water supply first.
Carcar is not on the eight-town list, but the 183 at-risk barangays across 25 towns have not been published, so ask your barangay whether it is one of them. The forecast shown to the Capitol has normal rain through November, dry weather in December, a dry spell in January and February and drought by March 2027. If your household depends on a spring or a shallow well, fix tanks and gutters for rainwater now, before the dry months, and expect the province's water tankers to go to the northern towns first.
Sources: SunStar, The Freeman, SunStar Superbalita
The amihan season has started, but El Niño will keep it warmer than usual
PAGASA declared the start of the northeast monsoon, the amihan, on Tuesday, 27 October, after a high pressure area over East Asia began pushing cooler winds over northern Luzon. It expects the amihan to take over most of the country in the coming months, bringing cooler weather, cold surges and rough seas, while a shear line, tropical cyclones and the convergence zone can still bring rain. It also warned that El Niño should become very strong before the end of the year, so the season will run warmer than usual: cool days will come but will not last, its administrator said.
In Carcar the amihan means cooler mornings and the start of the dry months rather than a cold snap, and this year El Niño will keep the afternoons warm. The practical part is the sea: rough seas are the amihan's trademark, so fishers in the coastal barangays and anyone taking a boat home for Kalag-Kalag should check the Coast Guard's advisories before leaving. With little rain expected until around March, every tank you can fill now counts.
Sources: PAGASA, SunStar, The Philippine Star
DOH 7 puts hospitals on Code White from 31 October to 3 November, and warns about the heat at cemeteries
The Department of Health in Central Visayas is putting government health facilities, including emergency rooms, on Code White alert from Saturday, 31 October, to Tuesday, 3 November, for the Kalag-Kalag visits that peak on 1 and 2 November. Rural health units were told to prepare too. DOH 7 said its own staff are too few to cover every cemetery, so it is relying on local governments: the Cebu Provincial Health Office will post medics at the South and North bus terminals, and the biggest cemeteries get priority. It warned of heat illness: many cemeteries have little shade.
If you are visiting graves in Carcar, go early or late and avoid 10 a.m. to noon, bring water and a hat or umbrella, and keep taking maintenance medicines if you have high blood pressure. Skip roadside food and water you are not sure of. Anyone who cannot handle the heat should stay home and let the family go. The emergency room at the provincial hospital in Carcar is a government facility, so it falls under the alert, and the rural health unit should be ready for minor cases.
Sources: SunStar, SunStar Superbalita
Visayas grid on red alert again on Wednesday evening, with 25 plants out
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines put the Visayas grid on red alert from 5 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, 28 October, with yellow alerts from 2 to 5 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Available capacity was 2,362 MW against a peak demand of 2,548 MW, with 804.3 MW unavailable: 25 plants were on forced outage, 10 of them since October, and 18 were running below capacity. NGCP again named the Therma Visayas 1 and 2 and KEPCO SPC unit 1 coal plants as down, plus limited imports from Mindanao during planned outages there. No advisory for Thursday, 29 October, had been published when we checked at dawn.
That is the second evening in a row on red alert, and nothing on the plant list has changed, so expect the same squeeze until the coal units return. On a red alert NGCP can order CEBECO I to drop load, which means short rotating outages in Carcar around 5 to 6 p.m. are possible. Charge phones and power banks by late afternoon, keep the water pump and heavy appliances off between 2 and 8 p.m., and check CEBECO I's notices before assuming an outage is a fault.
Sources: GMA Regional TV, The Manila Times, DZRH
