Residents ill-prepared for anticipated floods

Annastrashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): Although many people vividly remember 1996, when Jakarta's worst flooding inundated most of the city, this year few are prepared for the coming torrential rains, saying they were unaware of any potential disaster.

Massive flooding, however, has been predicted by Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) experts to hit Jakarta in about two weeks following a five-year cycle, which is caused by heavy rainfall in Jakarta and its surrounding areas.

Yet residents in flood-prone areas say that, due to repeated experience, they find it unnecessary to take any special precautions.

"My house is flooded whenever there's rain, so I'm 'trained' for flood," said one housewife, Linda, a 33-year resident of Bukit Duri, a subdistrict in South Jakarta which has traditionally felt the brunt of flooding every year.

The subdistrict is one of the 78 flood-prone areas in Jakarta, according to city administration officials.

In fact, Linda told The Jakarta Post, she has experienced so much flooding, she has now lost count.

"Of course the worst was the one in 1996," she said. "The bottom part of my house was completely inundated with water... we moved some of our furniture to the nearby mosque and slept on the second floor of the house," she said.

At the time, she was five months pregnant with her second child. Thus, having to move belongings around the house proved an extremely exhausting task for Linda and her husband.

Still, Linda counts herself as fortunate. "We're lucky to have the second floor -- others have had to take refuge at the subdistrict office or the mosque," she added.

"But it was particularly difficult at that time, since the water was very high -- we were almost trapped at the house without food," she continued.

However, there were food donations from the subdistrict office, which were distributed to local residents, Linda said, adding that she has not heard from subdistrict officials on the expected floods.

"There'll be another big flood?" she asked. "I haven't heard of that... I thought it will be the usual flood like every rainy season," she said.

Not far from Linda's house, Yanah, whose house was built but a meter away from the Ciliwung river, said that she was also unaware of the impending floods.

Her first house, a semi-permanent, was destroyed in 1996, after being completely submerged in water for a full week.

Yanah and her family were among the many people that took shelter at the local mosque. But as it grew crowded, they moved to a neighbor's house while waiting for the water in their house to recede.

"Even though the water had abated, it came seeping from the cracked floor, so we had to tear down the house and build a new one," she explained, noting that she did not receive any food assistance from the government.

"They never prepared us for flood, and didn't assist us during the trying times -- perhaps because they think that it's our consequence for living at the river side," she remarked.

But the chief of the Bukit Duri subdistrict, Cholid Mawardi, contested the allegation, saying that he has been alerting residents for the last month.

"I told them to be prepared for flood, as the rainy season is coming; I have been warning them since the fasting month," he told the Post.

As there is nothing his office could do to prevent the flood, Cholid said, officials are preparing flooding assistance posts at three locations in the area, where they would erect a temporary public kitchen while providing health service.

When asked about people who did not receive food assistance during the flood, Cholid said it was impossible to provide food for every resident.

"We are limited in resources," he said. Meanwhile, "there are more than 1,000 residents in my area."

Meantime, in Pademangan, North Jakarta, another flood-prone area, Isnaini recalls two weeks of living without electricity as her power was disconnected due to flooding.

"The water in my house was about a meter high ... although water is everywhere, it was difficult to get clean water," she said, adding that she, along with her family, were also forced to move to the second floor of their house.

Despite the flood, Isnaini persisted on running her makeshift food stall located not too far away from her house.

"I walked to the market while the water was at knee high. But I reckon, if I close the business, there won't be any income."

"I didn't know there would be another flood like the one in 1996 ... I suppose we'll be moving things around again this year," Isnaini said, hoping the BMG's forecasts are, at the very least, partly inaccurate.