As a result of December’s floods in Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro City, Tacloban’s regional office of the Department of Science and Technology has said that this year they will be putting water level sensors into major river systems in Eastern Visayas. This will be extremely important as it will provide notification and warning of any impending floods in the future. The specific improvement that this will provide is to reduce the lag time of the warning system to six hours, so that people can be notified more quickly and effectively. They will have six hours to prepare before the flood hits, which should be more than enough time. This will eliminate the element of surprise and will make local residents feel more secure in their homes.
In 2012, this will be a priority of the DoST, who have made it their goal to improve the disaster response abilities of the government, so that they can better safeguard local people. No-one wants to be caught off-guard by a severe flood as they are eating dinner or playing Partypoker and now it looks as though this possibility is thankfully being reduced. The device that will be used measures the rate of change in water level by using a technique that is similar to sonar and radar. It uses a sensor that is able to calculate the time between sending out a signal and receiving an echo, and this information is then sent to a central server to be monitored. The device also includes manual rain gauges and a solar panel.
This is a very positive development for the people living in Iligan City, Cagayan de Oro City and the surrounding areas, and hopefully it will prevent any more incidents like the floods last December from happening again.
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