Managing flood disasters

FLOODING in major urban centres has recently become a potential threat, specially its impact on the economic and social set-up. Monsoon rains have brought miseries for the people, specially in cities. Timely measures helped control the situation in some cities, but Karachiites are still struggling to come out of the problems caused by intermittent rains.

Several streets in the provincial capital have turned into streams. The traffic movement, disrupted and diverted at many places, has not been restored yet. KESC despite having additional power supply from interior of Sindh for the last fifteen days — thereby making people there to suffer — has failed to normalise the supply. The working of PTCL has also been affected.

This scribe had proposed last August that the century-old approach to carry out a relief operation should be replaced with a new concept of ‘disaster management’. The proposal might not have caught attention of the concerned authorities then, but after failure of the administration to handle the crisis effectively in earthquake areas last October the provinces were directed to establish ‘Disaster Management Authorities’.

Accordingly, a high-powered authority with representation from the provincial and federal departments responsible for running utility services and providing assistance in emergencies has been established. The authority at its meetings might have discussed and considered contingency plans to handle emergency situations. One may not like to doubt the quality of those plans, but failure of civic bodies to counter the current floods certainly points to flaws in those strategies.

Yet, there are other aspects that need to be kept in view. Sometimes, well-prepared plans get knocked down at the implementation stage for want of required machinery, material and manpower. This possibility, however, may not be applicable to Karachi where machinery and equipment of all kinds are available. Funds are also never denied by the authorities to handle emergencies.

There are ghost employees in different civic bodies of the province who, in connivance with officials, show their faces once in a month to draw salary. They might have been asked to be on the ground these days but obviously they are not properly trained to perform the job in emergencies. A better option will be to hire an additional workforce.

Functionaries, specially at lower level of utility agencies, know the places where drains are choked or may be overflowing and where nullahs and drains need repair, raising and strengthening and cleanings. They can also pinpoint areas where rainwater is likely to accumulate. They know all about the condition of pumping machines and their capacity as well as the need for additional machines to drain out rainwater.

Similarly, the KESC and PTCL authorities must be knowing the points in their networks which are exposed to floods.

All that is required is a survey of vulnerable points and an assessment of manpower, machinery and vehicles, and their timely placement and deployment. Availability of fuel and essential spare parts on the site or at nearest locations is also important as is the rotation of staff on duty and arrangements for their meals.

Supervisors, who should not only be mobile but also have wireless communication facility, should be assigned specific areas of responsibility and they should not sit at emergency centres but keep moving.

There should be monitoring staff at the union council and town levels under supervision of city government’s senior officials. These officials, along with Town and UC nazims, should hold meetings with councillors, monitoring staff and supervisors at designated places daily to review the progress, resolve the issues and ensue that there is no shortage of PoL, spare parts and other material at a place of emergency.

There should be effective coordination and frequent interaction with KWSB, KESC, PTCL and cantonment board officials not after an emergency but much before that which should continue even after the emergency is over.

This is an appropriate time to determine capacity of drains and nullahs as well as identify depressions where water accumulates and weaknesses of pumping machines. The exercise will help planners at a later stage.

Tailpiece: It will be better to build overhead bridges. The onetime cost of constructing an overhead pass may look higher, but recurring cost of maintaining pumping machinery for draining water from underpass will be much higher in the long run. Above all, an underpass during rains reflects badly on the performance of the concerned agencies besides bothering citizens as was seen in the case of Schon Circle Underpass.