“In the event of a fire in the towers, there are no solutions because the country lacks water, ladders, firefighters, or the means to deal with true fire disasters like those seen in New York City and other cities.” Branno Martínez.
SANTO DOMINGO- The overwhelming problems in its services facing the National District are due to the fact that its authorities did not prepare the city for the dizzying growth it has experienced in recent decades, according to Branno Martínez, architect and urban planner.
His opinion is that the central area of the Dominican capital should "slow down its growth" and focus on an urgent plan to improve and strengthen its services, so that they can respond to events such as the one that occurred last Friday, with the torrential rains that flooded the city, causing so far eight deaths and incalculable material damage.
“The reality is that the city, the city councils, Public Works, the CAASD, none of the government institutions have responded to the vertiginous growth that has occurred in the capital,” the expert says.
He believes that construction companies comply with the regulations required by government entities, but that many rules have been adopted as emergency measures and are not yielding results because they were not created to accommodate this significant growth.
Citing the case of parking lots, many of which were flooded during the deluge of November 4th, he said it is because the capacity of the water that arrives exceeds the calculations.
“The problem is that where before there was only one family in a house, now there are 20 or 30 apartments, and this very high level of development is happening in a city that has not prepared its services to receive it,” he insisted.
He understands that cities must be able to respond to phenomena that, while not occurring daily, can still happen. “It must be made clear that a natural phenomenon like this doesn't happen every day or every year; it's a very special and localized phenomenon. While phenomena like this, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, can develop occasionally, this effect in engineering and other fields is generally called resilience, which is the capacity to resist or withstand different events and phenomena. But the city is not prepared for anything,” the urban planner explained.
He adds that in the event of a fire in the towers, there are no solutions because the country lacks water, ladders, firefighters, and the means to deal with real fire disasters like those seen in New York City and other cities.
“From my point of view, the main recommendation is that this super-development should be stopped or reconsidered a bit, slowed down because what really needs to be done is to urgently focus on an emergency plan to fix the aqueducts, the sewage system, the electricity system, the issue of the power plants that pollute the environment, and the garbage collection, which was one of the causes of the city's collapse,” Martínez argues.
Regarding the garbage, he said the collapse occurred because there is no clear established system for collecting the waste. “Many people tear open the garbage bags to see what they find, there are dogs in the streets, and if it isn't collected, it accumulates just like problems do.”.
The architect believes that the development of the city of Santo Domingo has brought very high growth, especially in height, increasing the number of apartments and houses being built, and all of this also multiplies the demand and the problems of the city.
