(April 19, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) Heavy rain mixed with hail flooded streets, homes and ministry buildings in the immediate neighborhood around Radio Station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, on Saturday, April 16.
 |
| Raft used to rescue citizens in trolley car. |
No deaths or injuries were reported in a leading Quito daily, El Comercio, which published photographs of police transporting passengers in inflatable rafts from one of two trolley cars stranded in three to four feet of water in a viaduct just blocks from the radio station.
Traffic was halted on major thoroughfares through Quito, including Avenida 10 de Agosto(which connects to the Pan-American Highway), as flooding caused major congestion throughout the city's northern sector.A major street near the station, Avenida Brasil, was blocked after a wall bordering a parking lot at the Teleamazonas television station collapsed. Water crashed through a gate, propelling broken sections of wall and large rocks into the street along with several inches of mud. Municipal employees worked into the evening to remove the rubble and mud from Avenida Brasil where traffic was still restricted to one lane the following morning.
|
|
| Rubble covers Avenida Brasil in Quito. |
Municipal officials said the rain and hail filled two canyons, Chimichaba and Caicedo, on the slopes of Mount Pichincha, just west of Quito. El Comercio reported that mud, branches and rocks were swept to Avenida Brasil and the adjacent street, Avenida América, and beyond. Sewer lines collapsed in the city's north and damage to electrical transformers prompted power outages.
 |
| Ralph Kurtenbach helps with cleanup in the basement of the Vozandes Media building. |
When rain water began to penetrate large window frames on the second floor of Hospital Vozandes-Quito (HVQ), nurses evacuated patients to other rooms, and the cleanup began. HVQ Director Jim Estes reported no major problems in the basement where maintenance staff pumped water from water storage tanks to avoid overflows.
Next door at Alliance Academy International (AAI), water covered the playground, then flowed into a large first-floor atrium area and classrooms.In an AAI basement apartment nearby, Helen Cobb was caring for her two young grandsons during her visit from the U.S. Water came up through the floor drains during the downpour that occurred while Stephen Meier, her son-in-law who is the AAI high school principal, was picking up his wife and their newborn from a Quito hospital where the baby had received care for respiratory illness. Their apartment had also flooded just weeks earlier.
Sources: HCJB Global, El Comercio
Photo credits: María Isabel Valarezo, El Comercio; Horst Rosiak, HCJB Global
Colorado Springs, CO 80949-9800
800.873.4859