Incessant rains flood Leyte towns

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
December 19, 2005

TACLOBAN CITY  –  Nonstop heavy downpours flooded numerous barangays in several Leyte towns causing people and their working animals to evacuate to higher grounds or to their relatives in the neighboring barangays.

Early reports stated that barangays in the municipalities of Palo, Tanauan and Tolosa and the city of Tacloban, were flooded. As early as 3:00 o’clock in the early morning of Saturday, December 17, barangays folks were awakened when they found out that flood waters have already entered their homes.

The PIA 8 monitoring team observed that the pedestrian lanes of the national highway stretching from Palo to Tanauan towns were lined up with furnitures and other belongings including animals. At mealtimes, people unfolded their tables and ate their meals right there at the sidewalks.

The PIA 8 together with some members of the media publicly lauded the mayors of Palo, Tanauan and Tolosa for being hands-on in taking care of their constituents during the flood.

Small bancas were observed to be plying the interior streets instead of the usual pedicabs and tricycles. Cows, carabaos and pigs were parked at the sidestreets together with the motor vehicles and pedicabs.

In the municipality of Tanauan where majority of the fifty barangays were flooded, Mayor Roque Tiu said that at 4:00 o’clock in the morning of Saturday, he had to dispatch a patrol boat to the town’s barangays Sta. Elena and the neighboring barangays to rescue people and animals.

The mayor dispatched teams of the Philippine National Police to go around the town to monitor all the barangays as early as four o’clock in the morning. In barangays Picas, the flood water rose to five feet and so about 38 families had to be evacuated in the two-storey barangays hall.

In order to ensure that the people in the flooded barangays will have safe drinking water, the mayor requested the Leyte Metropolitan Water District thru its manager Engr. Nestor Villasin who immediately dispatch an tanker of LMWD to deliver safe drinking water to the barangays.

One of the problems, Mayor Tiu said, was that the people refused to leave their homes afraid of what will happen to their belongings. Many of them put up tents in the sidewalks and spent the night there. It was a good thing that only some areas had flood waters traversing the streets, Mayor Tiu added.

Damage to crops which include rice and vegetables about to be harvested and the newly planted rice and vegetables could not be determined as of press time.