Tavera handling was "adequate"

[NewsWhore]

The government-appointed commission that reviewed the handling of the Tavera Dam during Tropical Storm Olga has decreed that the dam was managed "adequately". Readers will remember the incredible damage inflicted on the city of Santiago and the farm areas downriver, caused by a wall of water released from the dam in the middle of the night. The commission did report that the Operations Commission for Managing Lakes in Emergencies was not able to operate appropriately due to the lack of a coordinator to chair the commission. The commission also made a series of recommendations, including the study and subsequent construction of the infrastructure needed to reduce risks in the case of future events, especially around the footbridge that crosses the Yaque River at the end of Fernando Valerio Street, the steel bridge that crosses the same river to La Otra Banda and the area where the Gurabo stream and the river merge. The government commission's report says that the floodgates were operated according to the manual, and places part of the blame on population growth and urban sprawl in Santiago as contributory factors in the disaster. The report said "the characteristics of Olga did not justify a prioi any preventive measures at the complex (Tavera), in the first place because it (Olga) never acquired the category of a hurricane, and because the severity of the predicted rains were not being confirmed by the information on rain that could be generated in real time by the available telemetry stations."
For more on the case, see http://www.dr1.com/forums/weather-beyond/... (http://www.dr1.com/forums/weather-beyond/69602-subtropical-storm-olga-late-season-tropical-depression-94-a-new-post.html)

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