Santo Domingo.- The director of the National Meteorological Office (Onamet), Gloria Ceballos, said this Wednesday that rains like those that occurred last Friday, which flooded streets and avenues in the capital and the province of Santo Domingo, will continue to occur due to the climatic phenomenon “Triple episode of La Niña” that has lasted three consecutive years, since 2020, affecting the country.
“These extreme events are going to keep happening. Before, previous decades told us that we were going to have these extreme events more frequently and that is what is happening”, said Ceballos when participating in the Weekly Lunch of the Corripio Communications Group.
He indicated that, although the “Triple episode of La Niña” is not a frequent atmospheric event, in the country it occurs with higher abnormal rainfall and has a lot to do with climate change that affects the world.
When questioned about the causes that caused the flooding in Greater Santo Domingo, she specified that the trigger for the flooding was the static permanence of the cloudy field for several hours in the same location.
“What caused the disaster was the magnitude of the permanent rainfall over the same area in a short period of time,” said the director of Onamet, adding that the ground was already saturated by the previous rains that occurred in recent weeks.
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“In less than three hours, in the specific area of the National District and part of Santo Domingo Oeste, more than 200 millimeters of rain were recorded, double the rains expected throughout the month of November regularly,” he said.
He explained that the Onamet acted correctly when issuing the bulletins corresponding to the Emergency Operations Center (COE) about the heavy rains with electrical storms in the East, Southeast and part of the Southwest of the country, for which several provinces were put on alert but it was the magnitude of the rainfall that “exceeded the expectations we had in relation to the effect that was going to to provoke In a very short time, it generated extraordinary accumulations of rain”, he admitted.
COE
For his part, retired Major General John Manuel Mendezdirector of the COE, stated that there was no human way to predict the accumulation of rain last Friday despite the fact that there are contingency plans for atmospheric events.
In this sense, he maintained that preparation will always go hand in hand with the capacity for destruction that events have, but that no country in the world is prepared to receive a quantity of rainfall such as those that occurred last Friday between 5:00 a.m. late at 8:00 at night.
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“No one is prepared to see their country or its institutions collapse and everything will always depend on the magnitude of the event when it comes to preparation,” he said.
He specified that even if the city had the indicated pluvial drainage and clean ravines, there would be no capacity to convey these waters in such a short time.
This Wednesday’s meeting was headed by the Administrative Minister of the Presidency, José Ignacio Paliza, in addition to the participation of Olmedo Caba, director of Indrhi, Tony Peña Guaba, director of the Social Policy Cabinet, and Bernardo Rodríguez, deputy director of Civil Defense. .
