CEBU City gets flooded easily because it has no rivers where rainwater could drain out.
So Mayor Tomas Osmeña will make rivers out of streets to solve the problem. And he is not joking.
“The problem with our drainage is that we have no rivers. Ang tubig mobalhin ra sa ubos. Low-lying areas get flooded. So we will make the road the river,” he told reporters yesterday.
Osmeña said the City will spend billions to convert streets so that the middle portion is recessed, with the road, which shall be below ground level, forming a shallow V.
Under the center portion will be a big, single-culvert drainage line. The center of the road will also have gaps through which the water could flow down to the culverts.
Out to sea
When it rains heavily, the mayor said the streets will serve as the rivers, allowing floodwater to head out to sea.
Better to have a street that becomes a river, with water dissipating in half an hour, than have flooded streets, said the mayor. Osmeña said this will be the “new technology” that would solve the city’s old flooding problem.
The mayor revealed that City Hall is already regulating and minimizing drainage projects in the upland areas so that flood-prone areas could cope with the volume of water rushing down from the mountains and uptown barangays.
Osmeña Blvd., Gen. Maxilom Ave. and Juan Luna Ave. will serve as model roads, he said.
Also, the mayor is planning to put up “retarding dams,” which would catch rainwater and let this trickle to the coastal areas at a controlled pace and volume.
The City is already finishing its comprehensive drainage master plan, but needs at least P700 million to implement it.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama earlier said the City might ask for help from the National Government, as it could not afford such an amount for the project now.
Past 40 years
Osmeña said the City has been addressing the drainage problem incorrectly for the past 40 years, as solving the drainage problem in one area only causes flooding and back-flowing in other areas.
The City, however, has already “fine-tuned the problem” and “there is no reaching the limit” when it comes to addressing it.
In particular, the mayor said he will not allow a company to develop several hectares of land in Barangay Guadalupe to proceed with its residential project if it fails to convince him that low-lying barangays will not suffer from floods.
“I will not allow them to put up the housing there unless they can convince me that there will be no flood,” he said. (RHM)
