Filipinos were mostly unfamiliar with storm surges, until one struck the bay area of Manila in September 2011. The force of the surge, with waves as high as 20 feet, destroyed hotel fronts and Manila’s Baywalk, and submerged the western section of the city all the way to Taft Avenue in several inches of water. That surge, however, was nothing to the one that flattened Tacloban City and several other areas of Leyte and Samar a year ago this month. Today memories of the typhoon have encouraged the development of more disaster-resilient dwellings and public infrastructure. There’s another tool for storm surge resilience, however, that has so far been generally overlooked: the propagation of mangrove forests around vulnerable areas.

Barriers to disaster. (2014, August 3). The Philippine Star, p. 16.