Public rues lack of flood information
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
During the rainy season, people whose houses are close to the river are fully aware that they might be hit by floods. Still, they are often shocked by the coming of the water as there are no prior warnings from local officials. Many of them can not save their belongings, particularly when the floods strike at night.
Lalan, 33, a resident of Cipinang Besar Selatan in East Jakarta, said she lost all her belongings, including her only item of value, a 14-inch television, when the floods hit last January.
"We had no chance of saving our belongings as the water came while we slept soundly," she told The Jakarta Post recently.
Lalan, whose house is located on the banks of the Cipinang River behind Cipinang Prison, is one of many Jakartans who were surprised by the floods during the rainy season.
Many said they had never been informed by related officials about the possibility of floods.
Hendra, a resident from Klender, East Jakarta, whose house is located on the banks of the Sunter River, said that his area was often inundated, even though it did not rain in Jakarta.
It occurred when there was heavy rain in upstream areas in Depok and Bogor in West Java, where the city's 13 main rivers originated.
Actually, the city administration has a good flood monitoring system. Water movement in the rivers from Bogor to all flood gates and flood monitoring posts in the city are closely monitored by the Public Works Agency flood monitoring center in Jatibaru, central Jakarta.
"Here, we have all the data about water levels at all flood gates and flood monitoring posts of all the rivers, which we receive from all the monitoring officers at the locations," said Taufik, a monitoring officer on duty at the central flood monitoring post.
However, there is no system to communicate the available data about the water movement to the public. Therefore many people are not well informed about the coming of the water.
According to Taufik, there are always officers on duty in the flood monitoring center. He said that during the rainy season, officers monitored water movements around the clock.
"From November, there have been seven officers tasked with monitoring the water. If the condition worsens, there could be more officers on duty," Gozali, another monitoring officer, told the Post on Wednesday.
He said that if there was heavy rain in Bogor and Depok, the flood monitoring post in Depok would send data about the water levels in the respective area.
"Actually, Jakarta has time to anticipate floods caused by water from Bogor and Depok as the water takes six hours to reach the Manggarai flood gate in South Jakarta," Gozali said.
The flood monitoring center in Jatibaru has guidelines regulating the opening and closing of floodgates in times of emergency, graded from one to four.
In Manggarai, for example, the condition would be declared as alert one if the water level reached 950 centimeters above sea level, alert two between 850 centimeters and 950 centimeters, alert three between 750 centimeters and 850 centimeters, and alert four less than 750 centimeters.
During alert one, only the governor is authorized to open the gate; the authority is in the hands of the head of the City Public Works Agency when the condition is declared alert two; head of the water resource division in the agency has the authority when the condition is declared alert three, while the monitoring officer on duty is given the authority during alert four.