Up to the chest in water, up to the neck with the excuses

IT was a wet, wet morning when I woke up at 7am. Looking out from the balcony of my condominium unit in Bandar Baru Ayer Itam fa­­cing Penang Hill, I saw an empty road in front of the All Seasons Place mall.

That was strange. Lebuhraya Thean Tek, the main artery in the township, is usually congested from 6.45am until 9am.

I did not know then that it was only the beginning of a disastrous day, when the state – both island and mainland – and parts of Kedah would be hit with one of the worst floods ever.

I looked again. The road was not empty. It was full of water. It had turned into a river!

Rushing to the road on a motorcycle, I saw stalled cars, drivers trying to reverse their vehicles and other motorists pushing their motorcycles.

A big crowd stood on higher ground looking at the stalled cars bobbing in the water and drifting each time a heavy vehicle passed by.

A driver had crashed his car into a road divider. A factory bus and a lorry had also stalled.

Wading in the water, I took pictures and video clips of it rising. I went to nearby Sungai Dondang and although the river was swollen, it had not burst its banks.

Residents in my condominium’s WhatsApp group were posting pictures and video clips of flood devastation. The two roads in the township were flooded.

There were traffic jams all the way to George Town. Many pupils did not go to school. There were landslides, cars were buried in mudflow, trees had fallen and vehicles were damaged.

There was a posting that a TNB substation in Jalan Thean Tek had exploded. It turned out to be untrue. The substation was flooded, but there was no disruption to power supply.

There was even a fake posting that Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had declared a public holiday because of the floods.

I abandoned my car and took my trusty old motorcycle to work in Bayan Lepas.

Passing by Relau, I saw a group of firemen and onlookers standing by the roadside near a durian stall.

I would learn later that a factory worker riding a motorcycle had fallen into a nearby river.

As the state’s residents fumed over mudslides, the politicians started their mudslinging.

Many issued press statements lambasting the state government for not implementing effective flood mitigation projects and for allowing rapid development on hillslopes.

State leaders blamed it on excessive rain due to Typhoon Doksuri, which is now lashing Vietnam.

Soon, the Federal Government will likely be targeted for not allocating enough funds to deepen ri­­vers.

At the state assembly in May, state exco member Chow Kon Yeow said the state had only received RM305mil or 21.7% of the original RM1.4bil allocated for flood mitigation projects under the Ninth, 10th and 11th Malaysia Plans.

But did the state government allocate enough funds of its own to deepen rivers and is it really committed to resolving flooding woes once and for all?

Consumers Association of Penang president S.M. Mohd Idris has said the floods were caused by increased water run-off due to hill and tree cuttings and over-development in the state.

The excuses are becoming as old as the floods in Penang. No more excuses and no more floods, please.