Rain and fear go hand in hand now

THESE days, nothing alarms me as much as rain and the aftermath the deluge brings to people, properties and places. Those days the rains used to be a welcome respite and it was deemed to bring good fortune, especially for the farming community.

For urbanites like me, rain translates into traffic jams, floods and a whole array of damage and inconveniences.

Since we have moved away from farming, as we have labs that are ready to produce anything and everything artificially, the rain is seen only as a harbinger of negative consequences.

This does not need to be so as there are multiple ways rainwater could be harvested for other uses.

I am not sure anymore when the rainy season is, when it starts it comes in a series covering days as if there is no tomorrow.

For those of us at work, we start to worry when the sky changes from its sunny scape to gloom, with black clouds completely taking over.

Come evening if it rains, especially on working days, it is complete chaos and floods in some parts of the city centre bring traffic in many or most parts of the city to a grinding halt.

The most recent flooding was on April 25 when I received pictures that came on WhatsApp, where roads had turned into rivers.

Vehicles getting submerged in floods became a normal scene on rainy days and authorities have grown complacent and impervious to such scenes.

Every time we see floods, the meteorological department promptly comes up with numbers indicating that rainfall had been unusual.

I am curious, what is the function of the meteorological department? Only to measure rainfall? What about its weather forecast function? Has that gone defunct?

I certainly did not see any warnings about the recent rainfall that caused floods in the city centre.

And surely, if the forecast had been good enough it would have been able to predict where and how much rain would be falling, and where the floods were likely to occur.

At the end of the day, it is all about data and numbers.

How much do we know about our rivers and their capacity to hold floodwaters? What about the flood retention ponds? Are they in working order? We can keep asking questions but there are no acceptable answers.

In the recent past, after the December 2021 floods hit the Klang Valley – encompassing the capital and other areas – there have been other flooding incidents that were captured by netizens and the media to decorate the front pages.

“The floods occurred due to unusually heavy rainfall in the space of two hours, and the existing drainage system was unable to support the high flow of water,” said Environment and Water Minister Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man in a statement after a recent flood.

It was like stating the obvious, but not telling us what had to be done to prevent recurrence.

Urban flooding has become a national challenge in recent years due to a variety of socio-economic and environmental changes alongside rapid land use change in flood-prone areas.

Losses from acute and chronic floods have become especially problematic in low-lying urban areas, where stormwater infrastructure deterioration, population growth and development have accelerated over the last several decades.

Unfortunately, limited information is available about the extent and consequences of urban flooding.

In much of the country, little is being done to address these consequences or develop plans to address these issues before they get worse.

Flooding affects people in a multitude of ways. People suffer stress on multiple fronts, not just as flooding occurs, but also in the anticipatory period preceding a flood and during the cleanup and recovery phase.

Flooding can damage properties, destroy homes, create financial burden and cause emotional hardship.

The media is usually on its toes immediately after the floods but soon the incident is forgotten until the next event occurs.

There were talks of a second SMART Tunnel in Selangor but then it withered away, unless we are in for a good surprise.

What about the floods in Kuala Lumpur? Many of them are flash floods.

Flash floods are the most dangerous because they combine the destructive power of a flood with incredible speed.

Flash floods occur when heavy rainfall exceeds the ability of the ground to absorb it.

They also occur when water fills normally dry creeks or streams, or enough water accumulates for streams to overflow their banks, causing a rapid rise of water in a short amount of time.

They can happen within minutes of the rainfall, limiting the time available to warn and protect the public.

It does not take a genius to see that flood mitigation in Klang Valley has to be a combined effort from all agencies.

Measures implemented in isolation will result in a waste of public funds.

“It does not take a genius to see that flood mitigation in Klang Valley has to be a combined effort of all agencies