Yeah, take out the champagne bottle and let's celebrate!
The DID D-G announced that the 9.7km water tunnel of the Sormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) will be opened a week ahead of schedule!
DESIDERATA is delighted that some public works, government-constructed or privatised, are being completed AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! A full seven days, which is 24 X7 hours = 168 hours. Let's be thankful for such breakthroughs. Finally Malaysians, or just KL City folks, are seeing some flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.
But you have to ask 71-year-old S. Joseph if this news was breathtaking.
Of course, the DID came out with a Consolation prize after Prime Ministewr Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi raised his voice. Or he fumed. Or as the NST report today put it, ...the flash floods "raised his ire".
From the NST, June 13, 2007, page 13,
'Floods happened on the
same day four years ago'
KUALA LUMPUR: "It was like
a tsunami. The water level
was so high, we even caught a
tilapia."
This was the devastating
scene which greeted 71-year-
old S. Joseph when he opened
the doors to the Cathedral of
St Mary the Virgin in Jalan Ra-
ja here on Monday.
:
:
:
DESI: For more of Joseph's deja vu experience,
go pay-lah RM1.20 for the paper -- it came a long way
through sunheat stroke or rainstorm waters via the vendor
network to reach thy neighbourhood. Be grateful to the Company
which delivers the news, and to Desi who gave thee a two-para peep.
Voyeurs be part of thee be, GBless and no over-showers on thy neighbourhood.
I:
S:
A: ...
Page 12, same paper, bigger headline:
'Blame the floods on rapid
growth, poor town planning'
KUALA LUMPUR: Imagine all the water in 3,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools dumped into the middle of the city.
That was exactly what happened in Sunday’s flash floods when 7.5 million cubic metres of excess water invaded parts of the city.
The flash floods, which raised the ire of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, were the result of years of rapid development and poor town planning, said Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) director-general Datuk Paduka Keizrul Abdullah.
He announced in a statement that to mitigate future floods in the city, the 9.7km water tunnel of the Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) will be opened a week ahead of schedule. It was originally scheduled to begin operating at the end of this month.
Keizrul said the department was speeding up the safety checks of the almost-completed water tunnel.
"The highest flood water levels n the city has increased by threefold over the past 20 years as shown in data collected at the Jalan Tun Perak bridge."
Keizrul said that every time a development occurred without planning for proper irrigation, existing rivers would have to cope with two to three times more excess water.
For example, 40 per cent of Subang Jaya is already developed, raising the water level during floods to 1.9 times the maximum capacity of the rivers and catchment areas because the runoff could not be absorbed by the Damansara or Penchala rivers.
Keizrul said apart from the multi-billion-ringgit flood-mitigation projects, the department had also been enforcing the Urban Stormwater Management Manual.
The manual, which was introduced in 2001, requires developers to plan for proper drainage before developing a plot of land, including building correct-sized drains or water retention ponds.
"The impact of the flood-mitigation projects will not be seen immediately but after all the projects are completed by mid-2009, there should be a decrease in the frequency of flash floods."
2 comments:
Wow! A full week ahead of schedule. But the question is SO WHAT?
Will opening the tunnel a week earlier will actually help to overcome all the pain, suffering and losses the rakyat has to endure?
Will opening of the tunnel a week earlier make the floods a thing of the pass? All this is another sandiwara to cover up what is truly lacking in the politikus up there, which is the will to do something BEFORE disaster strikes and not AFTER. Hmm...maybe they can't tell the difference between these two.
Anyway, my bet is that as soon as the tunnel opens, something happens and then the Dept of Irritation will say the tunnel did not undergo full testing and inspection. Hmm....
"You get the government that you vote for" was what my hero once said.
Opening a week earlier. Ha, ha....
The real storm could strike even a week earlier than the opening a week earlier!! Divine laws, what goes around comes around....I mean the real storm-lah. Mumble jumbo...dark columbus clouds above and tearing winds below. Water water everywhere. sampans and motorboats, anyone???
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