AS we’re wrapping up this week’s issue of the Pangasinan Star, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake, felt at Intensity 4 in Dagupan City, rocked the province.

It was fairly mild but enough to jog our senses to that big quake of July 16, 1990 and rekindle a brief fear about the unspeakable consequences of a Big One occurring anew in this city sitting on land geologically below sea level.

Quite significantly, we’ve been hearing the past weeks calls for better disaster preparedness in Dagupan aired by not a few of our city officials who, no doubt, were thinking more along the lines of the floods and typhoon surges along the beaches and waterlines that are common occurrences, in fact almost traditional, in our neck of the woods each year.

With two “mild” earthquakes hitting the province within a few months of each other now, it is not altogether “panicky” of us to put in place likewise practical contingency measures in case we have a repeat of the disastrous 1990 earth movement. Measures like identification of wide, safe and open spaces or closed but sturdy buildings where large number of families can be relocated if ever, enough emergency fund to buy supplies and medicines for victims and a battalion of trained and skilled volunteer and service personnel that can be mobilized in an instant in each barangay in case of widespread destruction.

More than any other agency or office, the vital public utilities should — make that must – also show to officialdom and the public that they do have the capability and determination to restore as soon as humanly possible disrupted power, water, garbage collection and similar services without the usual excuse of lack of manpower and budget among the managers and operators.

Prolonged absence of such vital services, after all, adds more misery and anxiety to everyone and conversely, restoration or return of such gives infinite relief to people even amid a swath of physical destruction.