Cries for help swamp rescuers in Rizal

The sheer amount of rainfall as Typhoon “Ulysses” (international name: Vamco) crossed Calabarzon region and Metro Manila starting Wednesday night until early Thursday caused massive flooding in Rizal province, forcing residents to seek safety on rooftops as floodwater rose.

Since Wednesday night, frantic residents in Rodriguez (formerly Montalban) and San Mateo towns in Rizal had been flooding the social media and disaster response hotlines with pleas for rescue, as mobile phone batteries began to drain and water submerging single-story houses.

Local authorities asked them to hold on, as families with children and elderly huddled on rooftops, citing difficulty in moving around at night in the middle of power outages.

By noon on Thursday, almost all government rescue boats and equipment were redeployed to these two towns to rescue around 8,000 people.

The Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (DRRMC) in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) had also asked less-affected areas, like Batangas province and San Pablo City in Laguna province, to send in their teams and even sought the help of private rescue groups.

Residents were ferried by government dump trucks to safer evacuation centers since some of these shelters, like those in San Mateo, were also flooded.

Max, a 25-year-old resident of Felicidad Village 3 in Barangay Banaba, San Mateo, said there was no advice at all from the local officials to preemptively evacuate until 1 a.m. on Thursday when village officials sounded the alarm that a portion of the Marikina River was nearing its critical level.

“At 4 a.m., we were all surprised to see the water above our knees and that (the adjacent subdivision) North Libis was already flooded,” he said.

Max, who declined to disclose his full name in fear of retaliation from village officials, said rescue came “very late” that his family decided on its own to move to a friend’s house. He said the same happened in Barangay Maly.

HELP COMES Apolice team helps a resident strandedon a rooftop in San Mateo, Rizal, board a boat after floodwater started rising in the village of Banaba due to heavy rain accompanying Typhoon “Ulysses” (international name: Vamco). —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Too much rain

It also took a while for help to reach the family of Antonette Goño, trapped on the roof in their home in Barangay San Jose, Rodriquez.

Loel Malonzo, Rizal DRRMC officer, said his office enforced a preemptive evacuation of close to 5,000 people from the low-lying and high-risk areas in the province way ahead of the typhoon.

But the flood in San Mateo and Rodriguez, which are upland towns, was just unexpected.

“[We were] really surprised. [But] to be fair to the LGUs (local government units), no one could have [beaten] that much rain,” Malonzo said in a telephone interview.

He said they recorded 750 millimeters of rainfall (an average of 100 mm per hour) from 10 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, “not to mention it had been raining already before that.”

What happened, he said, was comparable to the 2018 “habagat” (southwest monsoon) that dumped 1,000 mm of rain in 12 hours and the 2009 Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (Ketsana) with 500 mm of rain in four hours.

Saturated watershed

Alex Masiglat, spokesperson for the regional DRRMC, said Rizal was the hardest-hit province in Calabarzon, where the agency also recorded its first fatality in Cainta town.

Robert Napeñas Jr., 15, died from injuries after a tree fell on their house in Country Homes subdivision.

Malonzo also blamed the “saturated” Marikina watershed, and dams and floodgates opening, but did not think it was exacerbated by quarry operations in Rodriguez which, he said, was just in a small portion of the town.

In Laguna, the Caliraya Dam in Cavinti town released water as its reservoir neared its spilling level.

Families in Famy town had to be rescued on rubber boats, while chest-deep floodwater inundated the Laguna lakeshore villages of Landayan and Cuyab in San Pedro City and Dela Paz in Biñan City.

Emil Hernandez, the environmental regulations department chief of the Laguna Lake Development Authority, said lake water rose to 13.06 meters, breaching the maximum 12.50 m level, and triggered shoreland flooding.

Displaced

The regional DRRMC said the typhoon had displaced 6,621 families (23,438 people) across Calabarzon as of Thursday afternoon.

In Quezon province, 14,398 families were evacuated on Wednesday and early Thursday as Ulysses brought furious winds and poured heavy rain.

A kilometerlong section of Maharlika Highway in Lopez, Quezon, that links Metro Manila to the Bicol region was flooded and rendered impassable to all types of vehicles.

Ulysses made three landfalls over Patnanungan, Burdeos and General Nakar towns in Quezon from Wednesday night to early Thursday before it headed to Nueva Ecija province at 4 a.m. on Thursday.

In Oriental Mindoro province, the local DRMMC reported heavy flooding, prompting the evacuation of 1,198 families. —WITH REPORTS FROM DELFIN MALLARI JR. AND MADONNA VIROLA