People are still picking up from where they left. Many things about the flood will continue to be coffee shop talk in the weeks, months and years to come. The authorities failed us and were caught with their pants down. It showed the glaring inadequacies of our system to cope with a disaster like this. Early warning systems did not work because everyone thought it would not be bad. Guess people no longer subscribe to this adage, "better safe than sorry".
This is an aerial view of Titi Gajah, taken by my friend's brother who flew in a helicopter to send food supplies to her cos she was running low and her attempts to flag down help came to naught. It's got to be one of the more spectacular delivery of foodstuff during the flood. LOL!
The concerned bro and his assistant pilot.
The planners for the double tracking project did not foresee the artificially man-made bund turning a greater part of Alor Setar into Venice-like. Yesterday, my day helper called me to say that water was rising again at the housing estate next to ours. I took a drive there and informed my neighbour who did the same. It seemed the GAMUDA-MMC contractor broke the bund to release the water from the other side where villages were still flooded. Water came rushing back into those houses which had just been cleaned and also the kampung houses. So much for no-brainer!
Hospitals shut down because of power failures and water cut. Our newly completed supposedly state-of-the-art Sultanah Bahiyah General Hospital had to be evacuated... on hindsight it seemed like a bad decision. The hospital was built with no planning to cope for a crisis like this. Water trucks which were supposed to send water to keep the hospital running failed to deliver. Patients had to be evacuated to as far as Taiping. District hospitals could not refer critically ill patients due to the closure of roads, etc... there must have been untold deaths; unnecessary deaths due to bad decision and a let down by bad decisions.
We had at least a day to prepare for the rising waters... 2010 is a repeat of 2005, only worse. The Civil Defence and Armed Forces could have been mobilized to cordoned of areas with sandbags. They could have gone around giving warnings to the kampung and city dwellers. Yet none of this took place. They sat in their chairs like the proverbial ostrich, hoping that the problem would go away.
We had meteorological reports which reported a tropical depression. The rains came unabated and the water level at the Timah Tasoh Dam rose above danger level. Couldn't the engineers have released some water earlier to reduce the capacity?
The water treatment plant had to be shut down. I am sure the engineers could have predicted that. Again no warning for the people to store water.... the silence from all is very deafening; ineptness everywhere.
In Jitra there were reports of looting. In Alor Setar, we hardly saw any police. Today, the traffic light at the old hospital broke down. Guess what the traffic police did? They cordoned of the left and right roads and made it a straight flow traffic, creating a traffic jam that moved in a snarl. Why couldn't they put a traffic police to direct the traffic? Makes it pointless to have traffic police. Looks like they are there to parade themselves on their big bikes for show.
So I wonder... could be that after years of brain drain and appointments not by merits but by race, we've caused our own descent into this abyss of our own making. Cos the impression that seems to be given is one of helplessness, couldn't care less and ignorance!
No comments:
Post a Comment