It's flood season… again!

 

 Here we go again! Let the flood season stories begin and I can’t help but feel like we’re just watching reruns of old shows on a classic television channel or streaming platform.

Year after year, decade after decade, we see and read the same stories over and over. Yet, we still don’t do anything about it.

It plays out the same every year. The first stories we see will be reports of heavy rain and rising river water. Then we start seeing videos and photos of water flowing into the front gates and doors of houses, which is usually followed by social media postings of cars door-deep in water in the cities and towns.

Of course, the cities and towns are the same too, usually in Kelantan, Terengganu, Johor, etc.

Then, our political leaders will release statements of how they have ordered the different assets available to focus on rescue and evacuation.

The authorities will also start updating the public on different sets of data like weather reports, the number of households affected, the number of evacuation centres being set up, and sometimes, which is the worst, the death toll.

What comes next is also quite predictable. These same political leaders will start visiting the affected areas.

Photos and videos of them in life jackets on boats, or wearing boots wading through knee-high flood waters in between kampung houses will start appearing in the news. Their leaves will be frozen so they can focus on the country’s situation.

This year, I even read a few news reports quoting flood victims in evacuation centres after a visit from politicians, saying they felt so happy and cared for when these politicians shook their hands and asked about their health, checking if they had enough food.

But then again, I’ve read stories like these during previous years too.

As the days go by, resilient stories start appearing in the media. There will be photo essays and videos of children playing in the flood waters like it’s their swimming pool, diving off roofs or traffic light posts, and motorcycles dragging children in makeshift water skis usually made of basins.

Of course, stories of villagers fixing empty barrels to the bottom of beds and home appliances to keep them afloat will also appear.

Reporting the floods

As a news reporter, I used to be the one going to all the affected states and covering these flood stories. Then, as a news editor in the newsroom, I would be the one to manage and coordinate the reporters going out to cover the floods.

There was always a standard operating procedure which was the same every year.

This is a series of video reports I did in 2007 when I was covering the floods in Johor. If you watch these stories, you could probably transplant them to this year and they would probably be just as relevant and similar, which proves my point that nothing has really improved.

Now, I’m not complaining about how the media is reporting the floods. They are doing what they should by highlighting what is happening and what is being done.

This is important so that people, not just the public, but also the political leaders and authorities, are aware of what is going on so that the right actions can be taken in response.

What I am irked about is that Malaysia - as a country that faces the monsoon season every year, a country that has been facing these floods at the same time every year and can usually predict when the weather will turn for the worse each time - can only conduct rescue and evacuation operations once the floods have already started.

Why can’t there be more actions that will help prevent the floods from even happening, or at least from getting worse every year?

Proactive efforts

Can’t our government and authorities spend more resources on thinking about proactive measures rather than reactive efforts?

I understand that we can’t stop Mother Nature or natural disasters, but it is ridiculous in our situation where it keeps happening at the same time and the same places.

Don’t we have the technology to develop and improve our drainage systems? We can build better flood-preventing dams and levees, can’t we?

How about we stop developing land irresponsibly and cease indiscriminate logging that would cause these “natural” disasters? We should have the capability of determining areas that are prone to flooding and just simply not build homes there!

I have read of countries that develop parks and forest reserves in flood-prone areas so that they help absorb the impact of rising waters instead of building houses or commercial buildings there.

We really don’t have to develop every single inch of land as commercial or residential property. We shouldn’t be putting our people at risk by doing so.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t put in effort for rescue and evacuation. I’m also not saying that the rescue and evacuation efforts are lacking.

The National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) along with all the other agencies like the Fire and Rescue Department, the Public Service Department, etc, are doing a fine job and it does seem to improve each year.

What the country needs is a proper, long-term flood mitigation effort where all the relevant parties like the state and federal governments and communities involved work together more efficiently.

We should put as much resources as possible into prevention and proactive efforts as we do for our annual rescue and evacuation efforts. They do say that prevention is better than cure, right? - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist, and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT,