A Central Park for Singapore as a solution to floods?

Ong Dai Lin Today Online 9 Jun 11;

SINGAPORE - New York has Central Park. Now, the Orchard Road Business Association (ORBA) is eyeing a local version for Singapore's shopping belt as a long-term solution to the floods in the district.

This is one of the suggestions ORBA will be presenting today to national water agency PUB: A green space that not only serves as a venue for outdoor events but, more importantly, absorbs and stores excess storm water in an underground water tank.

ORBA has identified a possible location, its executive director Steven Goh told MediaCorp, without giving anything away ahead of its meeting with PUB and parties affected by Sunday's floods.

Mr Goh said a green space in the area could be designed into a park for community events, while an underground water storage tank could be built beneath it to provide water to the plants or be channelled to the Botanic Gardens.

ORBA hopes to convince the authorities that this would serve to add vibrancy to Orchard Road as well as combat floods during heavy storms.

Another suggestion ORBA will put forward is for PUB to conduct regular drills on its flood alert system. "This can test how effective the system is, rather than realising the system doesn't work when the flood occurs," said Mr Goh.

PUB had set up an SMS alert system that is triggered when sensors detect high water levels. But a software glitch meant that the flood alerts were not sent to some Orchard Road establishments. These suffered the most from Sunday's floods.

As for today's meeting with PUB, Mr Goh said: "Our top-of-mind agenda is to lessen the impact of possible re-occurrence of floods in the coming weeks, since the authorities have said that further storms can be expected. Secondly, we'd like to have the authorities' assurance that Orchard Road, as Singapore's pride and premium shopping street, doesn't flood again."

Railings installed along drains
Ong Dai Lin

In the wake of one of Singapore's worst floods, national water agency PUB has installed some 700m of railings at six locations, including Sixth Avenue, Clementi Rd, Marsiling Drive and Commonwealth Lane.

PUB said the railings improve safety by visually demarcating the drains from the footpath, especially in the event of floods when water levels may rise above that of the drains.

The agency said it has inspected drains at more than 70 locations so far, and found that some 30 of them may have safety issues.

Checks and installation work are in progress and PUB is also considering installing CCTV cameras and water-level sensors to monitor the drains. Seet Sok Hwee

ORBA to propose long-term solutions for floods
Evelyn Choo Channel NewsAsia 8 Jun 11;

SINGAPORE: The Orchard Road Business Association wants long-term solutions to the problem of flooding in the shopping belt and is meeting national water agency PUB on Thursday with a few concrete proposals.

One idea is to introduce regular flood-prevention drills.

The association also wants to know if an empty plot of land in the precinct can be used as a green space. This can also double up as a holding area for excess flood water.

Steven Goh, Executive Director of the Orchard Road Business Association, said: "Hopefully, we can convince the government to turn that into a green park, just like Bryant Park in New York.

"Besides serving as a park, perhaps we can build an underground holding tank to hold the excess storm water, at the same time we can use the water for recycling purposes."

Meanwhile, it is business as usual in Tanglin Mall. However, the management staff have been working around the clock, desperate to come up with an immediate recovery plan. The cost of damage incurred is not yet known, but one thing is for sure - the shopping mall will not be able to weather another flood anytime soon.

-CNA/ac

PUB installs railings across Singapore
Seet Sok Hwee Channel NewsAsia 8 Jun 11;

SINGAPORE: In the wake of one of Singapore's worst floods, national water agency PUB has installed some 700 metres of railings at six locations across the island.

They include Sixth Avenue, Clementi Road, Marsiling Drive and Commonwealth Lane.

The new railings visually demarcate the drains from the footpath.

PUB told Channel NewsAsia it has inspected drains at more than 70 locations so far, and found some 30 of them may have safety issues.

Checks and installation work is ongoing.

PUB catchment and waterways department executive engineer James Koh said they are considering installing CCTV cameras and water-level sensors to monitor the drains.

The agency added that the widening of Bukit Timah Canal will be fully completed by the end of next year.

PUB best sourcing department deputy director Lim See Gan said: "The canal capacity will increase by 70 to 100 per cent.

"That will certainly help to alleviate the flooding situation here.

"We have started work here beginning of this year.

"(For) the first stage of the work, we needed to carry out traffic diversion, to give us space to drive in the sheet pile that is necessary to hold the earth.

"Once the sheet pile on both sides of the canal are riven in, we then can carry out excavation work".

-CNA/wk