Water service interruptions, no electricity and telecommunications damage—no thanks to powerful typhoon Ulysses—are on the plates of hundreds of thousands on the path of the 21st weather disturbance which left an ugly trail of destruction Friday.
West zone Maynilad Water Services Inc. said its customers must brace for further water service interruption – while nearly 500,000 residents in various areas are still without power, hours after Ulysses left the country.
The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said its line crews were working to restore electricity services in areas that remain without electricity.
At the same time, the National Telecommunications Commission, pursuant to instructions from the Department of Information and Communications Technology, ordered all public telecommunications companies to fast track the repair and restoration of telecommunication services in areas severely affected by Ulysses.
The NTC also directed the companies to accelerate the mobilization and transport of their respective technical or service personnel and equipment to the affected areas, and to deploy Libreng Tawag and Libreng Charging Stations [Free Call and Free Charging Stations] in strategic areas affected by the typhoon.
As of 11 a.m.Friday, there were 453,349 customers that remained without electricity in areas that include parts of Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna and Quezon Province.
“From 3.8 million affected customers during the onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses, our line crews have remained unrelentless in restoring electricity service in these areas and the customer count is now down to 453,349,” Joe R. Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesperson, said in a briefing.
Maynilad said: “Affected customers therefore experienced a longer service interruption than originally projected. The service interruption schedules posted on our Facebook page and Twitter account have been updated accordingly.
“We regret that we will not be able to normalize water supply for our affected customers until rains over the Ipo watershed stop, and the turbidity level goes down to manageable levels. But we wish to assure them that we are doing everything we can to ease the impact of our reduced production through pressure management and mobile water tanker deployment.”
The water service interruption schedule announced on Thursday assumed a reduced production of 900 MLD (million liters per day), which is 61 percent lower than the usual 2,300 MLD.
However, given the unprecedented turbidity level, the actual output of our facilities was even lower, at only 700 MLD.
According to Maynilad, strong rains brought by Ulysses caused the turbidity in the raw water from Ipo Dam, Bulacan to reach an unprecedented level of over 6,000 nephelometric units (NTU) — way above the previous historical high of 1,800 NTU.
“This constrained us to reduce the production of our La Mesa treatment plants so we can maintain the quality of water that our facilities release to the distribution system,” it said.
Zaldarriaga said restoration of power might take a little longer for areas with severe flooding and where Meralco’s distribution facilities sustained heavy damage such as toppled poles, downed wires and damaged transformers.
“Rest assured, our line crews will continue with the restoration works. We appeal for everyone’s continuous understanding and patience, as our crews work to bring back power service at the soonest possible time,” Zaldarriaga said.
The NTC also reminded companies to coordinate with the Local Government Units and observe strict health protocols in performing these instructions.
Public telecommunication companies are to provide the commission, every six hours, updates on restoration activities of their respective networks and facilities, as well as a timeline for the full restoration of services.