Flooded street in Osmeña st., this city motorists try to plough through the rising flood waters in July 10. Photo by Dave Achondo.
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Bencyrus Ellorin .

FIRST, the issue was with weather forecasters failing to issue warning about tropical depression “Sendong” (Washi) barrelling its way above Cagayan de Oro’s watersheds.

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The fact then was not the failure to issue a warning–the problem was communication. In fact, weather forecasters at the Pagasa are like your neighborhood manalabtan, monotonously reciting the weather forecast. Worse, they use jargon, we have all come familiar with, but hardly understand, like “tailend of the cold front,” “inter-tropical convergence zone,” and so on and so forth.

A common joke about engineers is that many are thought to have “bugnaw simod.” This roughly means that many among them cannot express their feeling, the “love” kind of feelings.

Yes, engineers do communicate what their projects are all about. In public infrastructure, huge billboards are mounted containing basic project information. Written in small typeface, unless, one cares enough to stop and read, the information in the billboards are not outrightly communicated to the public.

Communicating to the public, be it in weather forecasting or in public infrastructure, is important. It saves lives, properties and convenience.

Flooding in Cagayan de Oro can be characterized into at least three kinds, based on topography and watershed. One, heavy rains in the second and third highest mountains in Mindanao, Kintanglad and Kalatungan cause the Cagayan River to swell, just like when Sendong struck.

Cagayan River is famous around the world for whitewater rafting. This main tourist attraction of the city manifests its most dangerous risk. From very high elevation, water is cascading at high gradient into the city. Whitewater rapids are created when high velocity current hit barriers like boulders and rocks.

The second is heavy to torrential rains over the city and northern Bukidnon towns of Manolo Fortich and Libona that results in the swelling of rivers in the eastern part of the city and water channels in the western part, like in the Patag and Kauswagan areas.

Third is the swelling of the Iponan River because of heavy rains upstream, in its watershed in the boudaries of Cagayan de Oro, Misamis Oriental and Iligan City.

The second is notorious for causing urban flooding. Urban or built up areas have low water absorption capacity. Thus, man-made engineering is important. Drainage have to be built to drain water into the sea or a river.

The Limketkai, USTP, Agora, Osmena St. areas, one of the most heavily built-up areas in the city, in fact touted as the city’s business district are low-lying and used to be part of the city’s natural drain. Their natural service is to absorb excess water run-off. And one of the rules of nature: water would seek its path to attain its natural level.

The city had a rude awakening when heavy rains, with water equivalent to two months of rainfall hit northern Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro in the afternoon of Jan. 16, 2017.

The city was paralyzed. Thousands were stranded and inconvenienced. People cursed and cussed the heavens and the smaller lords in government. The battlecry then was to upgrade the city’s drainage system, among others.

Was something done about the drainage system?

Then again on July 10, 2018, almost the same areas inundated in the Dec. 16, 2017 flooding, were hit again.

People cursed, cussed the heavens and pointed at government, particularly, city hall for the mess.

The reaction of the people to the July 10 flood would have been different had the Department of Public Works and Highways communicated effectively to the public what it is doing.

Mayor Oscar Moreno is starting to sound like a broken record in explaining that the billions of pesos worth of drainage and flood-control projects are not in the hands of the local government, but the national government. All the city can do is to make proposals and lobby expedient funding for these projects.

The cost of fixing the city’s flood control and drainage infrastructure could be the equivalent of the city’s three-year budget. These projects, aside from being expensive, also take a lot of material time to complete.

Now, people in the eastern side are cursing traffic congestion in the Agora area. At the western side, traffic is constricted in the Bulua, Kauswagan area. Soon, there will be more diggings in Carmen, Lapasan, and elsewhere.

The workers in these areas are not digging trenches or looking for Yamashita gold; they are building a modern, high-capacity drainage system.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 16, 2018 floods, the DPWH in Region 10 had asked for the funding of P1.8 billion for the “Construction Cagayan de Oro Drainage Project per Feasibility Study of Urban Drainage and Improvement and other related works.”

The request to Public Works Secretary Mark Villar was made by Director Evelyn Barroso on Jan. 30, 2017. The same request was endorsed by Mayor Moreno to then Senate President Koko Pimentel.

I learned that the feasibility study was done in August 2016. Some of the projects in the feasibility study have already started.

So, definitely, the rude awakening of Jan. 16 resulted in some drastic action on the side of engineering solution to the urban flooding.

In my succeeding columns, I will update you on the progress of work on the progress of these drainage projects.

Obviously, the flooding problem has not been solved. But something is being done to mitigate the impact amid the escalation of climate change impact on the city characterized by more frequent weather events. This, too, I will try to tackle in succeeding pieces.

***

One columnist got it right on the need to prepare for more floods. I agree on the premise that without the engineering solutions like the huge drainage infrastructure project at work now, the city may encounter problems like that of July 13. The column went on about hitches, from road right of way, telecoms cables, LKKS. His conclusion, however, calling on the Kagayanon to be “brave enough to tell our city officials to act correctly and fast” is illogical, foul, wrong.

Ano daw? Can he be more specific about what city hall did wrong and about the correct acts that it needs to hasten? There was none in his premise.

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