The Mandaluyong City local government announced that its multi-hazard, automated, and hyper-local early warning system "Project MENCHIE" (Mandaluyong Enhance monitoring of Natural hazards and Climate for Household Information and Education) got some upgrades as the city continuously boosts its climate and natural disaster monitoring.
The upgrades were presented by City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) head Roald Arcangel to Mandaluyong City Mayor Menchie Abalos on Monday.
Arcangel showcased to Abalos the new features of Project MENCHIE such as a Multi-Disaster Automated Risk Assessment Generator for data such as heat index, six-hour rain forecast, and six-hour accumulated rain for a specific barangay.
This map-based multi-risk assessment generator provides barangay-level color-coded risk assessment for both observed and forecast weather events which updates every 10 minutes, giving residents an idea on which barangays are currently experiencing and will expect heavy rains or extreme heat.
The generator also shows other possible hazards that can affect the Greater Metro Manila Area (GMMA) such as earthquake-induced landslide, flood, ground rupture, ground shaking, liquefaction, rain-induced landslides, storm surge, and tsunami.
Every risk assessment generated by the system is recorded and the datasets can be downloaded and used by students in their studies and research.
Another upgrade of the system is its capability to send alerts via SMS, which are also emailed to barangay officials, to warn them 15 to 30 minutes in advance if there are incoming lightning strikes and thunderstorms over/near their vicinity.
This gives barangay officials the capability to disseminate warnings or alerts to their respective constituents. They will also receive via email a 24/7 daily weather forecast summary which they can easily disseminate to the community.
"These features will be a great help to our barangay captains. I hope residents also use Project MENCHIE as they plan their daily activities," Abalos said.
To further increase its monitoring of air quality in the city, the CDRRMO personnel built its own unmanned aircraft system or UAS which is equipped with an MQ-135 gas sensor for air quality module. The UAS can help the CDRRMO identify the presence of harmful gases in the air.
Users of the Project MENCHIE community website (https://resilient-mandaluyong.org) can now download hazard maps of the city, which were adopted from other national agencies, for their reference.