Marikina City Mayor Marcelino "Marcy" Teodoro visited different areas in the city on Tuesday, Sept. 7, to check the situation of Marikeños after being hit by typhoon “Karding” on Sept. 25.
Accompanied by city department heads, Teodoro went to different barangays, including Nangka and Dona Petra in Tumana, as they observed the continuous drainage declogging, flushing, and cleaning of different facilities such as schools that were affected by the typhoon.
Teodoro said the residents were happy because of the improvement in the flood mitigation system in the flood-prone areas.
"Ayon sa mga residente, hindi na ganung kataas ang baha sa kanilang lugar kahit pa umabot sa 18.4M ang naging taas ng Marikina River katumbas ng Ikatlong alarma (According to the residents, the flood in their areas are not as high as before despite raising the third alarm in the Marikina River after its water level reached 18.4 meters due to the typhoon)," Teodoro said.
He added that the regular cleaning of the canals and dredging in the river greatly helped in keeping the flood in the city to a minimum level.
The city government said that a total of 5,024 families or 21,796 individuals were evacuated from their homes as the Marikina River reached the “critical” 18 meter water level early Monday morning during Karding's onslaught.
Evacuees began returning to their homes on Monday afternoon.
In February 2021, the city government, in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), initiated the pilot dredging activities in Marikina River to avoid the constant flooding in the city.
Based on the data from DPWH, at least four meters per second of water velocity for Marikina River is the aim in order to avoid flooding in low-lying areas in the city.
“Dredging will be done to widen the river, to deepen it, to get the correct ratio of the widening and the deepening of the river in order to improve the water carrying capacity of the Marikina River, and thus improving its water current velocity,” Teodoro said.