Pangasinan PDCC to enforce forced evacuation during future calamities

By Danny O Sagun

Dagupan City (24 June) — With all the lessons learned from the massive floods brought by typhoon “Pepeng” last year, preemptive evacuation will now be strictly enforced during calamities, Dagupan City public order and safety office (POSO) chief Robert Erfe-Mejia told a media forum Thursday.

Asked during the weekly KBP Forum as to what lapses were noted during that calamity, Erfe-Mejia said the city disaster coordinating council failed to fully enforce preemptive evacuation especially in danger zones. “Of course one other thing is the lack of logistical support and equipment,” he noted. “We hope we will overcome this time,” he added.

Avenix Arenas, spokesperson of the provincial disaster coordinating council, agreed noting that people could not just abandon their homes and belongings. “Hindi sila makaalis-alis kahit ilang beses na silang sinabihang mag-evacuate,” she said.

But after the onslaught of Pepeng, she said that people from danger zones already became conscious and wanted to leave their homes even at the first warning. “Nadala na rin sila siguro,” she added.

On why San Roque dam only released waters at the highly critical time when the typhoon was already dumping continuously heavy rains, Arenas recalled that officials responsible for water releases had sounded confident that the facility could hold all the waters. “Sabi nila manageable pa naman,” she said quoting said officials at the time the water level reached more than the 280 meters-above-sea-level mark, which is the “normal” critical level or spilling level.

Arenas vowed that the provincial government will never allow that unfortunate incident to happen again as the province thru the PDCC, she said, is now constantly coordinating with the National Power Corporation, the San Roque Power Corporation which operates the power generation component of the facility and the weather bureau, agencies which have jurisdiction over water releases.

She bared that recently, the province had a meeting with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and concerned government agencies for the former to prepare itself for the coming wet season. A simulation drill was scheduled on September 1 to be participated in by 10 towns located along the mighty Agno river where San Roque dam empties its excess waters.

She said that records at the PDCC only point to the unprecedented huge water releases at the onslaught of Pepeng as the culprit behind the destruction of properties and infrastructure particularly in eastern Pangasinan. She claimed that water releases reached up to 7,000 cubic centimeters per second (cms).

In a separate media forum Wednesday, NPC and San Roque officials pointed to the heavy rainfall during that time as the cause of the massive floods. They said that the dam only releases waters which it could no longer hold. “Kung ano yong pumasok na tubig, yan rin ang inilalabas,” said engineer Virgilio Marcelo who is in-charge of NPC dam warning and forecasting system.

But people downstream including people from areas far from the Agno river like Dagupan City have usually blamed the dam as the cause of flooding in said areas.

Erfe-Mejia said that “mark poles” placed strategically in flood-prone areas serve as warning for people and officials in the barangay during floods. The poles are marked yellow (warning and preparation), orange and red. He said the markings or water levels in a barangay may be different from the others. Pogo Grande, for instance, has a yellow mark for flood waters just a foot deep while Lasip Grande has that yellow mark for waters two feet deep. (PIA Pangasinan)