Richard Hartung Today Online 28 Jun 10;
The real news last Friday was that Orchard Road did not flood. Even as headlines focused on floods in Bishan or Chai Chee and a fallen tree on the Central Expressway, what's really remarkable was that water flowed smoothly in the drains along Orchard Road.
It is not that the rain was not torrential. PUB said that once again this past week, just like the week before, 100mm of rain fell within about one hour. The big difference was that shops along Orchard Road stayed dry this time and shops in other parts of the island flooded.
What's also different is that there had been a sudden flurry of activity around the Orchard Road area over the past week.
After the Orchard Road flood, PUB chief executive Khoo Teng Chye said his agency would take action to prevent a recurrence and PUB got to work right away. A photo on Thursday showed gratings being installed in drains along Holland Road as part of improvements from there to the drains behind Tanglin Shopping Centre. Small bulldozers were used to clear debris, too.
After the Orchard floods, PUB's Mr Khoo also told the media that "we were, frankly, a little bit caught off-guard by what happened at Stamford Canal. But, of course, now that becomes a new hot spot."
Unfortunately, there are still more new hot spots now. Along with Bishan and Chai Chee, shops and roads flooded in Changi Road, Toh Tuck and other locations around the island. The Singapore Civil Defence Force even had to rescue children from a childcare centre in Telok Kurau.
The damage just from the two recent floods is tremendous. Losses were estimated at more than $6 million along Orchard Road on June 16 and at nearly $1 million or more on June 25, excluding the cost of rescue efforts and commuters' time traversing around the floods.
It is hard to estimate the cost of Singapore's tarnished reputation for efficiency and preparedness.
The key issue is what to do next.
The short-term solution seems easy. Since shops along Orchard Road did not get flooded again, cleaning drains and installing grates seems like a quick fix to handle massive amounts of water.
An immediate priority could be to focus on detecting similar problems and preventing them island-wide. Every day, Mr Khoo said, more than 360 contractors spread out across the island to maintain the drains.
Along with this regular maintenance, an urgent inspection of the drains would enable contractors to check flood-prone areas quickly, clean out clogged drains and install grates.
The floods seem to be more than a short-term problem though, and flood-prone areas may have expanded beyond the "only about 66 hectares" that the PUB currently estimates. More frequent heavy rain seems likely - though hopefully not every week - so developing a longer-term strategy seems better than simply jumping from one hot spot to the next.
Although PUB has not talked much about new longer term plans so far, planning in other countries provides constructive examples of what could be considered.
While the Netherlands has a bigger problem with water than Singapore, it provides one model. A Delta Committee undertook a detailed study, presented its findings in 2008 and said "its recommendations must be future-proof". The Netherlands plans to spend up to €1.6 billion ($2.7 billion) per year to strengthen dykes and prevent flooding.
Hong Kong, which gets 2.2m of rain per year, offers another example. It has a dedicated Drainage Services Department (DSD), with a budget of more than HK$1.8 billion ($322 million), that is tasked with providing "world-class wastewater and storm water drainage services". It regularly develops and improves its Drainage Master Plan and Flood Control Strategy Studies.
While Committees and Studies won't solve everything, convening experts to analyse current practices and developing a longer-term strategic plan could be prudent.
And even though Singapore's smaller size and not yet needing to build dykes means that it does not need a Netherlands-sized budget, reviewing the annual budgets here of $23 million for maintenance and $150 million for drainage improvement could be beneficial.
After one large flood along Bukit Timah last year and two big floods around the island already this year, doing more than business-as-usual could be appropriate.
The writer is a consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992
