On the evening of Thursday, 3 November 2022, a gushing rain hit the capital city of Santo Domingo for about one hour. The rainstorm inundated the city, leaving soils saturated, but drainages worked and while difficult, people got on with normal life activities.
The next day, on Friday, 4 November 2022, unusually dark clouds forebode there would be another spate of heavy rains. Yet, people were at work, others at the university, others had gone to the gym or were meeting with friends or shopping.
The weather office, Onamet had forecast a tropical wave would merge with a trough, but no one gave the forecast rains a second thought, and rather interpreted it has just another heavy rainstorm that would quickly pass. The COE had issued a yellow alert for flooding for Greater Santo Domingo, but no one seemed to be listening and all was normal as the city prepared for weekend activities.
But from 5 to 8pm on Friday, 4 November 2022, Greater Santo Domingo underwent flash floods with raging torrents and the heavy rains ripped through the concrete jungle and low lying areas overflooding gullies and rivers. The waters swept everything before them in the three hours of the excessive rainfall.
Onamet says that in Greater Santo Domingo in three hours more rain fell than in an unusually rainy month.
Garbage made the problem worse. When there is a hurricane coming, people are giving time to prepare. And the preparations include not taking out the garbage.
On Friday, people just expected it to rain heavily, but never for it to RAIN. The weather department would report that evening that 232 mm of rain in three hours, equivalent to all the rain expected for the entire month.
Weather forecaster John Morales, in an interview for Noticias SIN, said the authorities had alerted of the heavy rains. He said that already by 11am the Center for Emergency Operations (COE) had issued a green alert for Greater Santo Domingo and by 2pm this was increased to yellow alert that means urban flooding.
The problem was that the rains would concentrate on the capital city with a vengeance. Morales said no weather forecaster could have known that the rains would have all fallen on the same point of geography. “No one could imagine so much rain at the same point,” he said.
He described what happened as a “black swan” event, for being unprecedented and unexpected, when interviewed by Noticias SIN.
On Friday evening, anyone who was out on the town was stuck at best in a traffic jam of two to six hours. At worst, people abandoned their vehicles to save lives. Six persons are reported to have died.
The intense rains flooded the streets, causing traffic jams. It took people half an hour to move a short street. People were doing u-turns on one-way streets when running into streets that had become lagoons with water levels so high that the water was up to the driver’s window.
One explanation is that the garbage and the intensity of the rains caused the drainages to collapse.
Videos showed underground parking lots in buildings flooded, and many vehicles were seen floating in the streets. It is expected that damages to flooded cars will be in the billions. At most, 25% of vehicles are insured with the very expensive full insurance to cover the damages, as reported in Listin Diario. Those without full insurance are being advised to wait for the car to dry out to try to attempt salvaging what they can.
The Dominican Chamber of Insurers and Reinsurers (Cadoar) and the Association of Insurance Brokers (Adocose) announced at a press conference that the adjusters and appraisers are carrying out a survey based on the claims that they may have as a result of what happened.
The Superintendence of Insurance reported 855 vehicles were assisted by the Center of Emergency Operations. 251 reported mechanical failure due to flooding.
Memes made the point that the same way the Dominican capital city, Santo Domingo has been dubbed The Little New York, the city on Friday, 4 November became The Little Venice. There were kayaks instead of cars on main city streets, such as the Av. Abraham Lincoln.
At the end, the intensely built up Polígono Central and environs were flooded. Where there was a single-family home, there now are 20 families living. The Carolina Mejía city government has been overly in favor of high rise developers.
Call it climate change, blame the developers, or what you name it. People will now remember, Friday, 4 November for the extreme rainfall.
Over the weekend, President Luis Abinader addressed the need for improvements in the rain drainage system of Santo Domingo. He said the works that need to be done would have to be continued over several government terms.
The media has reported that six persons died due to damages brought by the Friday rainstorm as per the Center for Emergency Operations (COE) Saturday evening report.
The deceased are:
Robert Maldonado Rosario, 15 years. Resident in Manoguayabo, Santo Domingo East. Electrocuted.
Robert Quevedo Santana. 50 years. Resident in Las 800, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo north. Drowned.
Teófilo Antonio Cruz Peña. 63 years. Drowned in the gully of La Puya, Arroyo Hondo.
Yilmes Cespedes. 20 years. Died when a wall collapsed in Villa Claudia, Ciudad Real.
Alberto Javier Pimentel. 47 years. Villa Francisco. Electrocuted.
Edwin Alexander Cedano. 25 years. Resident in La Zurza. Crushed by a wall.
The Civil Defense is searching for Jochy Batista who in the brunt of the storm left his vehicle to head on foot to his home in Cuesta Hermosa. Batista was concerned his 12-year old daughter was alone at home. The gully in Cuesta Hermosa flooded, causing millions in damages.
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7 November 2022