Flood
aftermath highlights
the best
and the worst
by Eric Jackson, in part
from other media
The September 17 rains that
left a swathe of death and destruction in parts of San Miguelito and
Panama City didn’t seem so severe at the time. At The Panama News office
in Perejil, which is located in the leaky-roofed Muchachas Guias Building,
there were only a few drips to mop up, as compared to a veritable flood
that had this reporter busy with the buckets and mop the day before. In
fact the metro area registered some 48 millimeters of precipitation that
day, as compared to 66 on the 16th.
But of course, the rains of
the 17th fell on already saturated ground, and added to rivers that were
already running high.
Thus while it seemed like
just an ordinary seasonal tropical cloudburst at the office, at the Juan
Diaz home of Naida de Justiniani, who comes in to do paperwork at The
Panama News once a week, polluted flood waters were sweeping into her
home, destroying most of her and her extended family’s possessions.
The destructive force also
took the head of this country’s SINAPROC disaster relief agency, Roberto
Velásquez Abood, by surprise. He told La Prensa that he knew it would rain
that day, but didn’t expect such an intense storm.
But various factors
combined to create an unexpected disaster. Drains that might have been
expected to handle the rainy season deluge were clogged by garbage, and in
some cases junk cars and blown-down trees. High tide slowed the storm
waters’ discharge into Panama Bay. And those were just the “ordinary”
risks.
Building practices also
contributed to the disaster. In San Miguelito, the red clay of a steep
hillside on which nobody should have ever built in the first place turned
liquid, coming down and burying homes. Along the Cabra River in Tocumen,
people who had built in the flood plain were routed from their homes by
the quickly rising waters. In Juan Diaz near the Los Pueblos shopping
center, the drains below the access road to the development backed up ---
not for the first time in recent years --- driving nearby residents from
their homes.
Worst of all was the Prados
del Este residential development, built adjacent to the Cabra River and
still under construction by PRONAVI and being promoted by Inmobiliaria Hogar Ideal. That project, financed by the Banco Nacional de Panama, is
built in a flood plain, and when first proposed the National Environmental
Authority rejected the company’s plans for that very reason. Later,
however, revised plans were submitted, which called for extensive
landfills to raise the homes’ elevations by about five feet and the
construction of a levee along the river to mitigate the risks of flooding.
Those revised plans were approved, but the company built according to the
earlier rejected plans and the consequences were manifested on September
17.
After the flood waters
subsided, the company went back to its building activities at Prados del
Este, but only very briefly. And angry mob of people who had been flooded
out of their homes threatened the construction crews --- all
subcontractors who are not directly employed by the developer --- with
great bodily harm. Then city engineer Jaime Salas arrived, noticed the
discrepancy between the approved plans and what Inmobiliaria Hogar Ideal
actually built and ordered a halt to construction work. Later, Panama City
Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro opined that the developers should be thrown in
prison for what they had done.
But parts of the
development had been flooded five times in the previous year, according to
residents. None of that seemed to have alerted authorities to the problems
at the time, even though a cursory inspection would have revealed that the
approved plans were not being followed.
It took several days to
find some of the remains and assess the extent of the damage, but the
final toll from the September 17 rainstorm is 15 dead, some 13,000 people
suffering some property losses and more than 700 whose homes were
completely destroyed.
The nation responded with
donations of cash, mattresses, blankets, clothing and food, with
volunteers presenting themselves at Parque Omar to assist SINAPROC with
the relief effort. Foreign embassies also pitched in. President Torrijos
declared that the austerity measures he’s imposing in light of the
financial mess he inherited wouldn’t be allowed to interfere with relief
efforts. First Lady Vivian de Torrijos coordinated much of the
distribution of essential supplies. IDAAN sent in tanker trucks to
distribute clean water to people whose supplies had been disrupted by the
disaster. Several public schools were turned into temporary shelters for
flood victims. Utility crews moved in to re-establish disrupted services.
The Ministry of Health took measures to treat infections among those
affected by contaminated flood waters and prevent epidemics.
Now, however, the response
is turning to investigations, in the first instance by a panel appointed
by Public Works Minister Carlos Vallarino. Whether there will be a genuine
criminal investigation (which would be rare, given the record of our
current Attorney General) remains to be seen, but the mayor’s call for
prosecution has been getting a lot of support in the daily newspapers’
op-ed columns and editorials, from legislators and from Government and
Justice Minister Héctor Alemán.
Meanwhile, a few people
have begun to take a longer view. Housing Minister Balbina Herrera warned
that a lot of people need to be permanently evacuated from homes built in
flood plains. There were calls for the construction and staffing of
hydrological stations, as it turns out that nobody was monitoring water
levels in the Cabra River, and if proper monitoring had been ongoing there
would probably have been enough warning time to save some of the lives and
belonging that were lost.
