CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 17 December) – Survivors of severe tropical storm Sendong (international name: Washi) lit candles and offered prayers during a simple memorial ceremony here on Monday, December 16, with the sad memories of the tragedy that happened thirteen years ago continue to linger.
“I still have recurring dreams that my two sons are still alive,” 47-year-old Beverly Pastrano, a survivor, said.
Pastrano was 34 years old then when rampaging flood waters spilled from the Cagayan de Oro River and inundated several villages along the riverbanks.
At least 1,200 people died in Cagayan de Oro and neighboring Iligan City from the flash floods triggered by Sendong, which unleashed some 475 millimeters of rain over a 24-hour period starting on the night of December 16, 2011.
The Cagayan de Oro River rose by as much as 30 feet, wiping out settlements in the riverside barangays of Balulang, Carmen and Macasandig here.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has constructed a dike system designed to protect communities beside the Cagayan de Oro River from flooding.
Funded by an P8.5 billion loan agreement between the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Philippine government, the DPWH built the dike system to protect communities from barangays Balulang to Bonbon on the western section of the river and barangays Macasandig to Puntod on the eastern section from flooding.
The impact of tropical storm Sendong had been seen on housing and business development in the city as residents and companies moved to the upper section of the locality, transforming outlying hills and mountains into residential subdivisions and commercial districts.
Engineer Armen Cuenca, City Environment and Natural Resources Office head, said that Sendong traumatized the residents that urban migration occurred as people move to the outlying hills of the city.
Cuenca said the commercial district has more than tripled in the western section of Barangay Carmen, which was once a grassy and rolling hill but now a bustling business zone.
“Everyone was scared to reside beside the Cagayan de Oro River. This triggered a migration to the hills around the city,” Cuenca said.
Ralph Paguio, chair of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines in Northern Mindanao, said the trauma caused by Sendong was “so deep that old families broke their traditional ties with the Cagayan de Oro River.”
“It used to be that old families like to live beside the river for their laundry needs and entertainment. Now that is all gone. Living beside the river means death,” Paguio, a native of this city, said.
But despite the dike system, Beverly Pastrano believed that that the tragic events of Sendong on the night of December 16 “will repeat itself in the future.”
She said she was told by her elders “that the river will flood every now and then and that Sendong was not the first time.”
Cuenca said the history of the Cagayan de Oro revealed that it has been prone to flooding due to the presence of the river.
“(But) the dike system will protect the communities from flooding. The dikes are high enough for the water to spill from the river,” he said.
For journalist Mike Baños, that assurance is good enough for them to move back to their old house that they abandoned 13 years ago.
“That dike will hold. I saw the specifications and believed in it,” Baños said.
Baños, his wife and two children survived the 2011 flooding by climbing to the attic of their two-story house in San Lorenzo Village in Barangay Macasandig. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)
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