Monday, October 13, 2008

Flash Floods After Downpour: A Sure Event


A 3-hour downpour caused flash floods at 6pm, 10 October 2008 Friday in Segambut.

Floodwaters immersed few main roads at Taman City Timur, Taman Kok Doh, Taman Sri Segambut and along Jalan Jambu Mawar as deep as half a feet.

Some of the affected roads were inaccessible to motor vehicles during the floods and the floodwaters only began to recede after the rains stop.

I received more than few dozen phone calls over the weekend complaining about the floods. Few callers even accused me for not doing anything about the floods.

In fact, flash floods were a constant occurrence after heavy rains not only in Segambut, but in many areas in Kuala Lumpur.

I have written a number of letters to city hall asking for a permanent solution to it. At one time, when I called a DBKL officer during a flash flood, the officer merely told me to call city hall hotline directly.

The public should know that the Draft Kuala Lumpur 2020 City Plan, the first city plan in Malaysia’s history, has proposed no permanent solution to floods issue.

I will keep raising this issue in Parliament. The last time I asked in the August House on floods issue was regarding the Smart Tunnel project, I asked to be given video recordings inside the tunnel during downpour to prove its efficiency. The Ministry of Works refused based on the reason that it is dark inside the “SMART” tunnel!


Lim Lip Eng

3 comments:

chuantim said...

Dear YB,

Owing to the rapidity of development for profit without thinking of sustaining the environment is where flash floods often happen. Drain actually build based on 100 years rain fall which has the capacity of holding the highest amount of rain water within 100 years time. Besides, people behavior also one of the factors that caused flash floor e.g. littering. By comparing 60’s or 70’s and nowadays, you would see that a lot of places are paved with cement instead of grassland that able to retain rain water. Therefore, it is important to have a sustainable development by now before it is too late.

Anonymous said...

That is the typical way how our projects work, Pocketing-Projects,favoring cronies than doing a good job. I have doubt if Najib take over, things will be the same.

I also recall Malacca was flooded due to human mistake of releasing the right amount water from the dam. And also, releasing water out from Malacca river once/twice a week make Malacca river a sewage! So much for a heritage location. Tak Malu Ali Ketam?

Anonymous said...

100 years rainfall does not results in 100 years flood. One have to do some flood modelling - looking at various rainfall tempory and catchment.

What happen to DID? They did talk very big about flood migitation for the Gombak River. They have build a very big retention pond and pumps. For more than 30 years many flood studies in KL has been carried out and this include drainage projects. With a computer model constructed , one can play around and see the effects of flood.