Flooding in Cebu and A Suggestion on How You Can Help

BAHA!

Heavy downpour caused an uproar all over Cebu.

While I was seated inside Bo’s in BTC, the water level in the parking lot started to rise. Before I knew it, the Bo’s staff were busy preventing the water from seeping into the cafe.

Then I checked Twitter.

You can guess what was flooding my feed.

This guy deserves an award pic.twitter.com/x6i2iAdU09 — Marc Abuan (@DongQuixote) August 28, 2014

 

As of 4:10PM in A.S Fortuna @TVPatrol @bayanmo @032cebu pic.twitter.com/Txv9ddGkBC — Kc Sabby ♥ (@kcsabbyyy) August 28, 2014

I could only imagine the throngs of people who happened to be outside at the time. Unable to go home. Stuck in a car. Or worse, knee deep in drainage water. As you can imagine, there was an outcry to improve the drainage in the city.

Everyone is stranded everywhere. They keep fixing roads but they forget to fix the drainage ways. #cebufloods — kaloy uypuanco (@kaloyuypuanco) August 28, 2014

Of course, this was warranted. Why all the focus on new concrete roads? Why not put up more trees? More parks? Less concrete? Those would help with flooding for sure. Obviously, the government should try harder and think of better solutions to improve this perennial problem.

But to be fair, this isn’t solely the problem of the government. As citizens, we are also at fault. One of the main reasons the drainage isn’t effective is because of the amount of trash clogging the pipes. How many times have you seen someone throw a piece of plastic out their car window? How many times have we nonchalantly thrown trash to the floor? Maybe even throw the trash into the gutter?

The drains are literally choked by the amount of trash being naturally swept away by the water.

Again.

The government can only do so much.I write this in the hopes that people remember that we have a responsibility as well. Next time you see trash on the ground. Pick it up. Look for a trash can.

Imagine if everyone started doing it?

Who knows what it would be like?

Probably not like the photos below.