‘Egay’ set to leave RP; Cebu City dredging on

Tropical depresssion Egay is expected to exit the country today or tomorrow morning, the state weather bureau Pagasa said yesterday.

Pagasa forecaster Jori Loiz said Egay weakened as it moved closer to the northern provinces of Cagayan and Isabela.  “It will just come close but it will no longer make a landfall,” Loiz said yesterday.

Pagasa retained Egay’s status as a tropical depression even as international agencies already elevated the weather system to a tropical storm, Loiz said. It was earlier forecast to hit Cagayan and Isabela.

In Cebu City, the dredging of creeks and rivers would be outsourced since the city government lacked the equipment to do so, Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias said.

Cabarrubias said the city only has one backhoe and one dump truck for its operation.

He said they have started to dredge Tejero creek, which was dubbed a priority due to the garbage that crowd the area.

The councilor said every week they dredge creeks in Tejero and in Kinalumsan river.

They are set to dredge Basak-Pardo creek anytime soon.

“Our dredging wasn’t going full blast but it helped to prevent floods,” Cabarrubias said.

Mayor Michael Rama, who visited the creek in barangay Mabolo, last Saturday, said he will ask the council to pass a P380 supplemental budget to fund partial implementation of the city’s drainage master plan.

Rama said the amount would go to rebuilding and rehabilitating the city’s drainage systems.

Since there aren’t enough funds, the city will have to implement the master plan phase by phase, he said.

The mayor witnessed the water overflow in sitio San Isidro II following last week’s afternoon downpour.

Residents on the other side found it hard to cross their foot bridge due to the current. Correspondent Fatrick Tabada with an Inquirer report