Crisis management needs standard operating procedures

Chennai figured prominently in the Paris climate talks last week. This is no matter for pride as the city became a warning to the world on climate change. Why would Chennai, with a moderate annual rainfall for about a century, suddenly get 50 cms in a bit more than a day? The naysayers on climate change may have more reason now to reconsider their stance in the wake of the experiences of 2015, which Chennai rounded off on that fateful December 1 and 2.

It is not as if warnings were not there for coastal cities. At the time of the 2004 tsunami it was being freely said that a city on the Coromandel Coast could face extinction this century from an extreme event like another giant tsunami triggered by rising ocean levels thanks to global warming. While it does not pay too much to pay heed to doomsday scenarios, whether based on science or superstition, it would not hurt to be prepared to read the warning signs and try to prepare for a possible

disaster.

If the levees broke to wreak havoc on New Orleans, still the closest parallel to the Chennai flooding, it was the release of water rather than the breaking of a levee on the Chembarmbakkam lake that caused the disaster from which Chennai is just limping to recovery. The city’s biggest water storage reservoir became its deadliest bugbear as a great amount of water was let out just in time to save the embankment and prevent the totally uncontrolled flow across vast swathes of the city.

While a perfect storm in terms of a weather front formed near Chennai to flood it with 50 cms of rain on December 1 and 2 (BBC put out a warning that a 50cm weather event could take place), it became a double whammy as the city was unprepared to take that amount of water thanks to poor planning practices over several decades. Much of the history of unplanned development, driven solely by the venality of politicians and babus of our land, is known already. What was shocking, however, there seemed to be no standard operating procedure to handle such a crisis.

It is learnt that the engineer who had to convey the desperate water scene in Chemarambakkam had to walk a kilometre to call in the event and convey the seriousness of the situation to his immediate authority because his mobile had no signal. By the time the overflow sluices were opened, the force of the water would have built up as if straight out of Hollywood horror movies. And then came the deluge that drowned parts of Chennai that had stayed dry even through the 50 cms rain. The failure lay as much in water management as in a climate change extreme. A modern city should be able to take in this kind rain without hundreds of people having to die and billions of rupees of damage.

It is only logical that coastal cities be planned in such a way that the excess water runs off to the sea through proper drainage channels. Chennai is fortunate to have three major rivers running across it from west to east which can be used to take the water.

About thirty lakh people did not have access to food and clean drinking water, thousands of lives were devastated by loss of belongings and a loss estimated to be as high as one lakh crores around the state, including the personal loss of millions of individuals,is not ruled out. All this because our water management system in 2015 is probably more primitive than in Rome where aqueducts conveyed water over large distances. The Chennai experience is such as to have led the way to the laying down of SOPs. India needs the monsoons but the least Indians can do is learn to manage the water.