Six hours. That’s all it took for Tropical Storm Ondoy (Typhoon Ketsana) to inundate most of Metro Manila with the worst flooding this generation has ever experienced. Six hours of torrential rain that poured 455 millimeters or 17.91 inches of rain in the Marikina watershed that fateful day of Sept. 26, 2009. Six hours that saw Marikina River burst its banks and swell to a historical high of 23 meters above sea level.
A dreadful six hours that forever scarred the lives of majority of its hapless victims, mostly from the eastern part of the submerged metropolis. Equivalent to a month’s volume of rain, Ondoy caused widespread devastation in Metro Manila and 23 provinces that were placed under a state of calamity.
Ondoy caught everyone by surprise and introduced us to the alarming phrase “new normal” (the increased intensity of typhoons in the country), which we first heard from Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ramon Paje.
True enough, Ondoy was repeated three years later when Habagat 2012 wreaked havoc in Marikina with 21.5 meters above sea level. And, again in 2013 when Marikina River’s water level reached 19.9 meters above sea level.
If we were traumatized by Ondoy, the habagat flooding experiences left us terrified with the knowledge that this was the “new normal” Sec. Paje warned us about in 2009. It could have been worse. But we learned from our experience. We learned to cope.
In 2009, Marikina was caught flatfooted when its vaunted fleet of construction-heavy equipment was parked in the grounds of the engineering department for the weekend—submerged in floodwaters. All these assets were rendered useless during the clearing operations after Ondoy.The Marikina City Government later instituted a protocol wherein all vehicles and heavy equipment of the LGU are brought to higher ground when the water level reaches dangerous levels to make sure it lives to fight another day.
If it took us a month to bring things back to normal after Ondoy, it only took us a week to recover from Habagat 2012 with our mechanized fleet in full force. Six years ago, our first responders were flood victim themselves. Today, we are backed up by first responders from MMDA and other uniformed services like PNP, AFP, etc.
Another thing working to our advantage is social media. The Marikina Public Information Office now has about 100,000 followers on Twitter and more than 50,000 likes on Facebook. This enables us to monitor the water level of Marikina River and disseminate updates accordingly.
Project NOAH and disaster scientist Mahar Lagmay also proved to be a blessing after Ondoy. Whereas we had to rely on manual computations from the River Park Development Office to determine the volume of water that would cascade down Marikina from the watershed, and how many hours it would take to reach us; we now had that information with the click of a button. I remember the time when Mahar called me up at midnight on the third night of Habagat 2012 to warn me, “Paul, alam ko pagod ang mga taga-Marikina pero kailangan mo silang gisingin kasi tumaas ang Montalban River ng six meters at bababa yan sa inyo in two hours!”
I want to believe that all these factors and the establishment of the Marikina Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MCDRRMO) contributed to lessening the impact of severe flooding after Ondoy.
Our command center is equipped with more than a hundred CCTV cameras and nine units of 42-inch colored monitors that enable us to see the water level gauge under the Marikina bridge and other critical areas. We can now see what is happening during a crisis. Unlike before when we were operating practically blind.
Much has been done by the Marikina city government in the disaster risk reduction equation, but there is still so much more to be done.
The 26,000-hectare Marikina Watershed only had 10 percent forest cover during Ondoy. According to DENR, the watershed needs to be planted with 28 million trees for it to be effective. The 60,000 trees that Marikina has planted since 2010 is a mere drop in the bucket.
If we are really serious about not having a repeat of Ondoy, tree planting has to be done in a massive scale. We need to plant millions of trees! Marikina cannot do it all alone. ( Paul Edward Sison)
The author is the chief of the Public Information Office of Marikina City and president of the Association of Information Offices in Metro Manila (AIMM)—composed of 17 LGUs and all national government agencies based in Metro Manila. He also heads a full-service marketing consulting firm specializing in business development, marketing and public relations.