Meanwhile, Chen said, there was a need to set up an alarm system that monitors changes in water level upstream during stormy weather.
The engineers at the DGH also have to be trained to interpret various data provided by the Water Resources Agency to make better judgments on how it could take proactive action to protect bridges.
The MOTC has estimated that it needs a total of approximately NT$31 billion (US$942 million) to repair damaged facilities under its administration. Among them, about NT$29 billion will be appropriated to the DGH to restore devastated highways.
The Central Weather Bureau has identified the towns in southern Taiwan that received the highest accumulated rainfall when the nation was hit by Morakot between Aug. 7 and Aug. 10: Dapu (大埔), Alishan (阿里山) and Juci (竹崎) in Chiayi, Liouguei (六龜), Jiasian (甲仙) and Taoyuan (桃源) in Kaohsiung and Sandimen (三地門) in Pingtung.
These towns received an average of 74 percent of their usual annual rainfall during the three days.
Liouguei, Jiasian and Juci were also on the nation’s top 10 accumulated rainfall list when Tropical Storm Kalmaegi hit last year.
Liu Chung-ming (柳中明), director of the Global Change Research Center at National Taiwan University, said the nation had to get used to extreme weather.
“We just had the highest temperature ever recorded, 39.5˚C, in Hsinchu the week before Morakot came,” Liu said. “The next thing you know we receive the heaviest rainfall so far this year.”
Liu said that between 1960 and 2000, an average of 30 typhoons and tropical storms formed in the Northwest Pacific Ocean per year. Between 2000 and last year, the number dropped to an average of 24 per year.
Before 2000, only about 4.5 typhoons would actually affect Taiwan, but from 2000 to last year, an average of 7.1 typhoons hit the nation each year.
So far, three typhoons have made landfall this year and only nine tropical storms and typhoons have formed in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
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