Let’s put aside for a moment the ideological aspects that divide us in this country. It is up to us to talk about those situations that the elected municipal government has to face and that it has to take care of and that it has to face, because they affect all of us, regardless of the political sympathies we express.

Guayas is the province with the most educational institutions affected by the rainy season

It is becoming clear that the weather in our country is becoming more and more unpredictable. The Coast, Sierra and Oriente have gone through heavy rains. We saw the proximity of a cyclone in the South American Pacific, which affected the weather in Ecuador and Peru. We witnessed clouds in a spiral formation in front of the Gulf of Guayaquil. Major resorts suffered waves the likes of which have not been seen for a long time. Guayaquil and Durán suffered flooding that spread for blocks. Add to that the landslides on the roads between Costa and Sierra, the collapsed bridge in Montalva and the ice that appeared on the upper part of the road between Colta and Pallatanga.

18 deaths, 14,000 people affected and 7 cantons in a state of emergency, the cause of the winter in Ecuador so far

The predictability of the weather is becoming more and more uncertain, and the impact of these anomalies affects more and more people. Mayors need to start making real emergency plans and put political divisions aside to coordinate with national authorities.

Mayors need to start implementing real contingency plans and put political divisions aside.

Let’s look at the case of Guayaquil. The outgoing administration drew up a Land Development and Use Plan that can only be described as “without words”. Lots of texts, plans and tables that say nothing. A crude effort that does not provide guidance on how to organize city planning in the next twelve years, but remains a mere description of the existing one. The mentioned document does not at any time conduct any study on flood risks. There are also no conditions for growth based on projections that define the areas of greatest risk. This implies that there are no definitions of safe areas, where the population would be protected if necessary.

Previous administrations have limited themselves to saying that floods are normal, that we have to learn to live with them, that tides have a bigger impact than any contingency work that can be done; as if London or Amsterdam had to live with such resignation.

In the medium term, there will be problems with flooding in Guayaquil. The city’s rainwater systems are largely outdated. We add to this that the Guayas Basin continues to lose flow due to increased accumulated sedimentation. More and more parts of the city that are flooded will appear, and the level of flooding will increase.

This is not exclusively a municipal problem, as it is something that affects Guayaquil. Nor is it a problem unique to the Prefecture, since it includes the Guayas River. What is coming is a national problem. This will only be revealed when the infrastructure of the port, which handles 80% of imports and exports, is affected.

Start thinking about it now. (OR)