By Julie M. Aurelio

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Residents of Pangasinan towns flooded during Tropical Storm "Pepeng" (international codename: Parma) were warned several times about the spilling of water from the San Roque Dam, a National Power Corp. engineer said Tuesday.

"We regularly gave warnings, but people in the areas to be affected by the opening of the spillgates did not leave their homes for safer ground," engineer Romualdo Beltran said at a disaster mitigation forum at the University of the Philippines.

People, especially those living downstream of the San Roque Dam in San Manuel town, were given several advisories at least six hours before the dam released excess water, Beltran said.

"But when we warn the residents, they don't leave immediately, they tend to wait because they don't want to abandon their homes," he added.

Sirens, loudspeakers

Such warnings, Beltran said, came in the form of sirens from fixed warning stations near critical areas.

"We have sirens and a voice recording issued hours before the spilling of water. We also have warning vehicles which go around the towns to warn the residents," he added.

"I have heard that we will be sued for allegedly spilling too much power, but what I'd like to point out is that there is a river system in Dagupan which keeps on flooding, and that is the cause of the flooding, not the San Roque Dam," Beltran said.

He said the dam administrators measured the average basin rainfall at the San Roque Dam from eight rainfall gauging stations for four days.

From Oct. 6 to 9, the average basin rainfall was pegged at 507.6 mm. Beltran pointed out that the figure was 203 percent higher than the average basin rainfall for the month of October for the past 15 years.

Too much rain

"You will really see that there was too much rainfall. Even if we didn't want to spill water, we had to do it. We had no choice but to let the water flow," he added.

Beltran said the dam spilled 483 million cubic meters of water during the storm.

He noted that administrators used a flood forecasting warning system in which the rain and water level were monitored constantly.

In the summer, residents are briefed where to seek safety when spillways are opened, he said.