Chennai floods - Lessons for future

Flood has come and gone, rain is still around, making people remember all is not over. Threatening

Trail of destruction

forecasts, make people wonder is the worst over?

However it looks like there are lot of lessons to be learned form this entire experience. What could have been prevented could not be since we as people never accept warnings in their true meaning. If we are warned about floods, we have to accept the flood is going to happen. 'I have seen it all attitude' is something which needs to get out of our mind. Am sure those who have experienced the aftermath will certainly vouch for it.

This Chennai flood of 2015 is going to be a lesson for the urban planners, if they want to learn something from it. Mushrooming growth of the cities without any urban planning and the human greed will combine to make a human tragedy inevitable.

Should buildings be allowed basement construction near river beds, this is something the urban planners need to ask themselves. Understand there is a chapter in the Chennai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's master plan for 2026 on disaster management, which apparently talks about there is no known danger for the city. Now that the myth has been busted, probably it is time for everyone to start thinking in this regard.

MIOT Hospital ICU

In the total magnitude of the devastation deaths in a hospital ICU sounded very insignificant, however the negligence that has caused this tragedy could have been avoided when the owners of the hospital had followed required safety guidelines, while constructing the hospital and keeping in mind the possibility of such occurrence. Did they explore the possibility of hiring Generator vans (typically used during film shootings and at IT offices), were they not available, was the fuel a problem all these questions are best answered by those concerned.

Even today around the city both approved and un approved layouts keep mushrooming in agriculture lands and have narrow roads as wide as 15'-20'. We have seen when the flooding happened rescue could not even reach on boats as there were cars parked and boats could not maneuver between the parked cars, in the narrow streets. 

World over we have seen fire trucks being used in rescue during the floods, here we didnt see even

Use of Fire Trucks n Tractors during floods

one vehicle being used for that purpose. Many people caught in the roof tops could have been brought down with the help of fire truck ladders which today can reach high rise buildings, for example the fire truck could have been deployed from the Kotturpuram bridge and those living in the TNHB dwellings could have been rescued, wonder why that thought had not been exploited?

Tractors, excavators, Cranes are the machines that could have gone into the waters, excavator buckets could have helped to bring down people stranded in the first floors and tractor trailers could have been used to carry food, relief material into the water logged streets, more efficiently than the boats and since they are powered, can wade through water. Tractors holed up at the airport which was anyway not in use could have been deployed and even vehicles could have been summoned from nearby villages in Tiruvalluvar and Kanchipuram districts.

Fine, now the waters have receded and life is limping back to normal, it is time to rebuild for the future.

Rain water harvesting , Tamil Nadu is considered to be in the forefront in this area. PM Modi had even lauded the TN efforts in this area. Now, how to take it bigger. All the city roads should have RWH systems in their design, it serves two purposes, water drains faster into the soil and leaves none for the roads to get damaged, which is an annual money spinning area for the corporation contractors who lay the roads. Have some images and links for this purpose.

When ideas were invited in Australia, one kid had sent in an idea to deploy Banana boats for rescue, while our NDRF had the rafts that were deployed, it took some time for the same to reach and get deployed. Moreover the biggest issue with NDRF was communication as i understand, because very few in the force could speak the local language. Maybe an initiative should be taken to call for ideas to prevent flooding and if required to be used in rescue. Maybe it is time to consider whether fire department should be under NDRF, since fire is also a disaster.

Now that a flood has happened, our regulators will bring in one general rule that multi storied

buildings should have flood risk management in place, and that will be a new way to make money. It was indeed a great problem, with water entering into the basements of 100's of residential and commercial buildings. This has ensured damage to vehicles, Electrical system (which in our country is located interestingly in the basement of the buildings), generators, Lifts etc. This loss alone is likely to be running into hundreds of crores and huge claims on insurance companies. In addition to the loss in productivity. This problem was more pronounced in the ares where the rivers were passing through in the city.

CT Scan in water at Global Hospital

Many a hospital had been built in the places which are not located best, Global Hospital approach

Global Hospital access curtailed

gets flooded regularly, MIOT had the biggest tragedy during the floods, because it was allowed close to the Adayar river, the flooding blocked the access to the hospital

Still items like bread are in shortage, as manufacturing is hampered, newspapers were not published for few days because their presses could not be accessed. Most of the industrial units are going to find their production resumption an issue, with machinery damaged, electrical and electronic systems compromised, it is sometime for the normalcy to come back. There are bound to be stories of few families which are put to total loss which will result in instant poverty. Indeed it is laudable that the TNEB workers have done a super job in ensuring the restoration of normalcy

In spite of the deluge, drinking water is still a problem, since production units had their own problems, including absenteeism as workers are more worried about their fallen/destroyed homes. Many outlets could not replenish the stocks, because the issues of supply chain, where the distributors had either their stores/warehouses water logged or workers didn't come in.

Car companies had their own night mares, in addition to taking up huge repair jobs, they had to face

the problem of plenty with many of their own stock yards/ service centres getting deluded with new cars under water and cars left for repairs from the previous flood still in their backyard. Chennai being the hub for automobile manufacturing had faced a big impact with most of the units in water, and their ancillaries too having their own share of problems.

While the religious harmony taught us enough lessons of tolerance, it maybe a pre-requisite that in future any such structures like Temples Mosques, Churches, Gurudwaras etc are only allowed to be put up in elevated places to ensure a safe place during calamities.

The end is not near for the woes of the people, we will hear them till the new year or even after, but what needs to be remembered is, Are lessons learned from this tragedy by Govt of the day, by the people and everyone else concerned, is the critical question that is going to be answered in the action that is rolled out.


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