Call for early warning system, disaster drills

AT THE entrance to a resort in Sungai Lui, Hulu Langat in Selangor, is a muddied slipper hanging by a yellow raffia string.

Resort owner Salehin Ibrahim was heard joking with clean-up volunteers, telling them, “If you want to find Prince Charming, you should look for the owner of this slipper”.

Salehin said some scavengers had sifted through his rubbish bin for metal and other scraps.

When one of the pet dogs at the resort rushed towards the scavengers, they slashed it with a parang. In the melee, this slipper was left behind.

The Dec 19 floods that devastated Hulu Langat left Salehin’s property in ruins.

A small stream had swelled up to such an extent that it swept away items in his kitchen, toilet, storeroom and gazebo.

The heavy rain also caused a landslide on a hill just metres away from his house.

Silt and sedimentation carried by the floodwaters even altered the course of the stream.

The floods’ after-effects also saw new streams running across places that were previously dry.

This was evident in some parts of Jalan Sungai Tekali near the Semenyih Dam, where streams were seen running across the tarmac. Although affected residents smiled, joked and showed courage in the face of the disaster, this merely masked their seething anger and disappointment.

One of the issues upsetting them is the lack of warning, which had put their lives at risk.

From Sungai Lui to Taman Sri Muda, none of the victims interviewed by this reporter could say they had received any warnings of impending floods, which would have given them time to save some of their belongings and move to higher ground.

If they had been warned, the message was either not well-publicised or spread wide enough, said affected residents.

“It was only when water started rising that instinct prompted me to go home to save my family. We didn’t know what to do or where to go. We could only flee for our lives,” said Taman Sri Muda resident Zailizam Buyimin.

Kampung Batu 17 Paya Seberang resident Zaki Halim said he did not hear any warning sirens on Dec 19 when Sungai Langat burst its banks and swept away anything that was not bolted down in his kitchen, toilet and bedroom, along with a bridge that connected the village to the main road.

The fact that help came late was another matter.

Seri Nanding Residents Association secretary and retired army personnel Nordin Paiman said that in the past, the army would be stationed in flood-prone areas even before waters started rising.

But two days after water receded in Seri Nanding, there was still no sign of any of the authorities. The residents themselves had to direct traffic. Employers of the flood victims sent essentials such as fresh water and packed food.

Noting that the majority of those who responded to frantic calls for help on social media were either outsiders or NGOs, residents are calling for change.

Agencies in charge of monitoring the weather must play a bigger role by being more precise when it comes to issuing warnings. It is not enough to say that there will be heavy rain. There must be indications as to whether floods is on the cards.

Residents insist that impending floods are not hard to predict, since there have been frequent floods in certain areas in the past.

Such announcements should not only be made through social and mainstream media alone, they said.

Residents said the local authorities, area councillors, the ketua kampung and community leaders must also help to spread the warning, especially in flood-prone areas.

They, along with the help of relevant agencies, must then monitor these areas closely.

In this aspect, community leaders must make it a part of their agenda to ensure emergency drills are carried out so that residents are mentally ready to face such events.

An emergency volunteer group can also be trained to become first responders for such a purpose.

In preparation, public address systems, like sirens for example, must be deployed at houses of worship and even malls, to warn the people of impending floods as not everyone is tech-savvy to obtain such information online or through their smartphones.

To ensure that residents’ properties are kept safe in the event that they have to evacuate, security must be deployed in flooded areas to prevent intruders.

The flood victims also raised the issue of temporary shelters needing to be adequately prepared to receive evacuees.

Any vast space to take in people must be considered.

This should not be limited to public schools and halls. Convention centres, for instance, can also double up as evacuation sites.

The flood survivors are also irked by the authorities’ poor maintenance of drainage and irrigation.

Rubbish-clogged drains, faulty flood gates and water pumps as well as the effectiveness of water retention ponds are issues that must be addressed not only during the rainy season but the whole year round.

Before construction, project developers should also present effective solutions and implementation of storm water management.

The flood victims want the authorities to learn from the December floods.

The people are concerned that the issues raised will be forgotten once the affected areas are cleaned up and flood victims rebuild their lives.