Flooding hits San Carlos City

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

 

BACOLOD City – One hundred families were evacuated in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental due to flooding last Saturday.

Residents of Barangays 1, 5, 6, and Rizal were affected by flooding as some of the city’s rivers and creeks overflowed due to heavy rains.

According to Engineer Arthur Batomalaque, Senior Environment Management Specialist of the City Environment Management Office (CEMO), plastic wastes (that usually clogged waterways) were not the cause of the flood since these have been long addressed by the city.

Batomalaque, in a statement posted by the local government unit (LGU) on Facebook, explained that the downpour and debris it brought to the city’s waterways might have caused the flood including the bottleneck at some stormwater outlets.

He said that the water did not last long but immediately subsided which is a good indication of a non-clogged drainage system.

He also said that the volume of water coming from the mountains was just enormous to contain by the water channels.

He said Mayor Renato Gustilo already planned on widening the waterways including the exits of creeks and rivers, especially in Barangay 1 which is a flood-prone area. The city will just have to check its flood control plan, he added.

Batomalaque also stressed the importance of planting more trees.

Although the city has been doing this for quite some time already, he emphasized that there is still a need to double the efforts since the trees are the front liners when it comes to flood.

The flooding in the city came a week after more than 30,000 families were affected by massive flooding on January 1 and 8, which damaged an initial PHP60-million worth of agriculture, fishery, and livestock products in the northern part of the province.