Cagayan governor Manuel Mamba asserted that they were fully prepared for typhoon Ulysses, but the floods were just too much to handle, citing it was “worse than we prepared for.”

In a report by ABS-CBN News, Mamba said they have prepared for the expected rainfall and flooding, constantly warning residents and launching forced evacuations. He added that they thought the magnitude of the flooding would be the same as last year. However, the volume of the water was just too much to handle.

“Nakapaghanda po kami, no question about that. We anticipated this, we had preemptive evacuation, we had forced evacuation. We anticipated this, but we did not anticipate how enormous ‘yung tubig na darating,” said Mamba at the Laging Handa briefing on state-run television.

He also stressed that the last time the province was inundated with the same volume of flooding was in 1975.

“That’s why many were surprised, but really we prepared for this but this is worse than we prepared for,” said Mamba.

The governor also noted that water from Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao, Kalinga and Isabela rushed down their province, and that the soil was already saturated due to continuous rainfall. In addition, the Cagayan River was also already clogged. And then, there was the Magat Dam water release, which has been going on for three days.