Barangay Carmen East residents: No warning signal!
IT came like a thief in the night.
This was how Fernando Escalona described the rampaging water coming from the volume of water released from the San Roque Dam, devastated his barangay Carmen East in Rosales town.
Escalona, a former barangay chairman and now president of the Senior Citizens Association, said it was the worst-ever flooding that he experienced.
“Nakita ko nagbubuwalan ang mga bahay, naghihiyawan ang mga tao, nagpapasaklolo. Sabi ko manalangin na lang tayo,” Escalona told The PUNCH in an interview while supervising the clearing and cleaning of the mess in the aftermath of Typhoon Pepeng last October 9.
Carmen East was among the worst devastated barangays in Pangasinan.
Escalona said they were totally unprepared for the flooding brought by the typhoon and aggravated by the water release from the dam.
No official warning was given to them, he said.
Escalona said, thanks to a text message he received from friends about the dam’s release, he was able to help evacuate some 20 families to a two-storey house.
Two elderly citizens of the barangay died due to hypothermia and many of the residents had to wait 24 hours to be rescued down from the rooftops of their houses.
DREAMS LOST
Stephanie Salindong, another resident and a former overseas worker, said she not only lost their house that she built from her earnings abroad, but many of her dreams.
Her family was not able to save any material possession and all that was left of their bungalow was half of the gate.
Salindong, 23, lamented that nobody warned them about the dam water release.
She said she found out about the sudden water release from San Roque Dam through a text message from her uncle who lives in Paniqui, Tarlac, and it barely gave her family just enough time to move out before the flash flood ravaged their house.
Her family took refuge in the old two-storey house of her grandmother.
Salindong’s father, Ferdinand, described their experience as “very horrifying” but “the family is thankful,” however, that everyone survived.
Stephanie said she would leave and work abroad again if that is what it would take to give her child and her parents a new start.#
