Welcome to Jakarta, the underwater metropolis
"What a beautiful sight!" a friend exclaimed upon seeing the skyline from the 27th floor of a five-star hotel in Central Jakarta. It was raining heavily on that Tuesday night.
He went on, "There are still many vacant plots. We could have invested our money in building more shopping malls, offices or apartments."
Call it an overreaction, but I had never expected that kind of comment from my friend, someone I considered to be highly intellectual and broad-minded.
"Hey, that's a bad idea," I replied curtly. "You know, those vacant plots serve as water catchment areas. Without them, Jakarta would sink," I added, a bit sorry for having shouted at him.
Other friends with us commented that he was only looking from the business point of view that it would be good to have more investment projects in the capital.
"But don't do that at the expense of the environment and the public," I insisted.
The next morning, another friend said her boyfriend in Tebet, South Jakarta, decided to skip work because the road was blocked by local residents after floodwaters swept through the area.
"My boyfriend got an SMS from a friend that the road was flooded, so was the office. So, he turned around and went home," she said.
However, she forgot to tell me that traffic in the capital was severely affected from the heavy rains and floods.
Just in front of my housing complex, I saw public minibuses going the wrong way down a one-way road to avoid the flooded sections. The situation was worsened by the many taxi drivers who had parked their vehicles along the road because their depot was flooded.
"And it's not even the peak of the rainy season yet," I grumbled.
I remember three years ago, when the great flood paralyzed the capital for nearly a week. I had to stay overnight at the office for three days because the toll road connecting Jakarta and Tangerang -- where I used to live -- was underwater and impossible for private cars to pass.
Many Jakartans got stuck there, and the stretch of toll road to Cawang turned into a huge parking lot. I counted myself lucky that I was able to return to my office and sleep underneath my desk.
Unfortunately, this meant I had to leave my three-year-old boy at home with my maids. I couldn't help the tears that rose in my eyes when I heard him crying over the phone, because my husband and I hadn't come home for more than 24 hours.
When the media reported that the city administration lacked adequate measures to anticipate this year's flood season -- including efforts to evacuate flood victims, setting up public kitchens and temporary shelters and most importantly, in complying with the Jakarta Master Spatial Plan by conserving water catchment areas and greenbelts -- I thought I'd better come up with my own emergency measure: I'd better bring a change of clothes.
It's just a precaution, in case I have to overnight at the office again.
A colleague joked that the office should have provided several rubber rafts and life vests, just in case we had to go whitewater rafting to business meetings.
As Governor Sutiyoso warned recently, a few sluices might be opened this year to reduce flooding in vulnerable areas, which would cause the water to flow into many elite districts -- including the State Palace.
So if there are any state guests coming to Jakarta, they might get a very different sort of welcome than they are used to: they may be picked up by rubber rafts to sail down the main Sudirman and Thamrin "rivers" before alighting at the palace "pier" for their meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
It could even be that serious discussions on the country's prospects and development would be held aboard the "presidential raft" -- provided there is one.
Or maybe our top architects could start to consider design options for transforming Jakarta into an underwater city, just like those in sci-fi flicks.
Hey, why not? We're halfway there already -- and besides, it would open new opportunities for investment, wouldn't it? -- Budirianti