02D4E: Bad Metropolis

Wednesday - Roast Chicken

The effects of Typhoon Carina brought Metro Manila to a virtual standstill today as the linger rains caused flooding across the metropolis. Our location in BGC remained pretty safe and with power and internet, so I guess we are rather lucky in this regard. Other parts of Metro Manila were more severely impacted and there are people whose lives aren't quite back to normal just yet.

The stress of the past 24 hours has resulted in social media discussions related to why Metro Manila remains unable to handle sustained rains. It wasn't even the actual indicators of a typhoon that did us in - this being stronger winds. Instead, it was the monsoon rainfall that the typhoon had enhanced that had made things terrible.

Climate change is certainly a factor in events like this. Our rainy season doesn't follow the usual patterns I grew up with for one and the overall intensity of typhoons seems to have gotten worse. There's no avoiding the impact of this - the whole planet is suffering from the effects of global warming and such. 

Poor infrastructure is still a problem in Metro Manila. Today has been a reminder that little progress has been made since the likes of Typhoon Ondoy as we haven't implemented proper flood mitigation solutions. As Ondoy was over 15 years ago, you'd think that some improvements would have been made by now. At this point, places like Marikina are serious danger zones when it rains for too long unless something is done about things.

Deforestation and the loss of natural watersheds are also contributors as well. More trees in the right places might even help mitigate some of the impact of all these land reclamation projects that have been done here and there. There's no turning back, so we need to figure out ways to deal with the problems at hand.

No one thing was the main driver for the continued flooding issues in Metro Manila. And there are probably a lot of other factors like clogged drainages, lack of clearing operations, and whatever. We'll need to try to address all of these factors together to make a real dent in how this place deals with heavy rainfall sooner rather than later. I'm just now sure how our politicians define "sooner" given everything else that gets sexier media mileage. 

 

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