ACKNOWLEDGING the importance of an early warning system to protect the lives of the people vulnerable to flooding, Davao City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CDRRMC) targets to install cameras in all river system in Davao City for real time water level monitoring.
CDRRMC operations officer Rodrigo Bustillo said that these cameras will be placed in the upland areas. They hope to implement the project late this year or early 2020.
They will install the cameras in the upland area of Lipadas River, Matina River, Davao River, Bunawan River, and Lasang River.
With these cameras, they can now monitor the water level in the upland. If there is heavy rain in the hinterland, they forecast that the water will come down to the lower parts of the city in two to three hours’ time. Given that amount of time, they could disseminate information and conduct preemptive evacuation if the situation permits.
“Makita nato in real time unsay situation sa atong mga kasapaan so we can give a prompt advisory sa mga tao kung kinahanglan ba sila muhawa based sa atong na obserbahan using our coastal camera (We can see the real time situation of the river system and give prompt advisories to the public based on the monitoring),” the CDRRMC chief added.
Along with the cameras, they will also procure siren alarm.
At present, there are four coastal cameras installed in Binugao in Toril, Matina Aplaya,Sentro Agdao, and Bunawan. They are high definition cameras that could transmit real time information with a night vision feature. Should there be floods or earthquakes that might trigger tsunami, they could now monitor the water level and give appropriate public advisories.
“Sometimes, ang mga advisories gikan sa Phivolcs (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology), dili dayon muabot pero kung atong makita ang actual observation dira sa dagat using our coastal camera, then we can have a real time advisory (Sometimes, advisories from Phivolcs are late, but with the camera, we can have actual observation of the situation in our coastal areas for real time advisory),” he said
The existing four coastal cameras costs around P5 million. For the river camera project, Bustillo estimates it to run at around P20 million.
“Again, early warning is one of the very important tools to secure the lives of the people,” he said.
“We need to invest for the safety of people. Kinahanglan na i-inplace nga mga requirements just to ensure that Dabawenyos are safe. Mao pod ang mga paglantaw sa atong mayor nga tanan gyud safety nga malikay sa kadaot (We need to prioritize these to ensure the safety of Dabawenyos. This is also the vision of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, to secure that everyone is safe),” Bustillo said.