Massive Flood

Penang is known for its heritage and history, and these attract people because, well, they are an identity. But what people often overlook is that with heritages and histories that are left untouched, there comes an issue of maintenance and upgrades. Penang's limited space inhibits many developments. The buildings already line the roads, and hence the roads cannot be expanded, even though they were built to cater for traffic in the 1950s. And the same goes for the drainage system.

Most people do not know how drainages are designed, but as a civil engineering student, I do. Drainage aren't designed and built arbitrarily. Usually, we take the rainfall of a predetermined period (10, 20, 50, 100 years are norms) and design a drainage system that are meant to cater for it. Which means, drains aren't built to be fool-proof. They aren't built to be unassailable. If today's rain is the largest in decades, it is very likely the drain cannot cater that volume of water, and flash flood will occur.

To upgrade a drain that caters 20 years of water to 50 years of water requires a massive change in size of the drain. This will not be easy to be implemented in Penang due to its restrictive land size. Hence, other alternatives have to come in place, and these alternatives will not come cheap. Hence, the delay in Penang.

The rain on early Friday morning wreaked havoc in Penang. It was the worst flood I had seen since I was born. In Mainland Penang, where I lived, flood had not made its presence for a decade, and now it came back lurking on our roads. If Mainland Penang has flooded, then the rain must be massive, and it must have overwhelmed the drainage system. This is a natural disaster that can't be disputed. But at the same time, mitigation plans will not be carried out easily.

Penang should expect more floods. This has nothing to do with the incompetence of state government. This is a very challenging issue for the civil engineers because this is an uphill task. It costs a lot, and mitigation plans would usually cost something that stakeholders' will not surrender easily. Penang still has a long road to go in solving the water woes.