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Residents brace for floods as rain starts soaking Jakarta
It has been years since Rohani, a 66-year-old resident of community unit (RW) 4 of Kedoya Selatan subdistrict in West Jakarta, put her 1
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span>It has been years since Rohani, a 66-year-old resident of community unit (RW) 4 of Kedoya Selatan subdistrict in West Jakarta, put her 1.7-meter tall refrigerator on top of a 1-m high table in her living room.
Even though it looks odd, Rohani said she did it with a purpose — she would not have to rush and move it to a higher place in case of flooding.
Having experienced so many floods in her life, Rohani, whose house stands right in front of a river, said she did her best to minimize losses during floods, such as placing a 30-centimeter wooden plank on her doorstep to prevent water from entering her house and putting all of her electronic appliances onto a high table.
She also purposely did not purchase any sofas for her house, as they were too heavy to be moved and would get submerged and damaged during floods.
“The locals have already got used to flooding. We see it as a risk of staying near a river. Since we cannot relocate to another place, we just try our best to minimize our losses during the floods. For example, most residents here don’t have sofas because they are too heavy to move to a higher place and always get damaged during floods. If guests visit our houses, we simply roll out a carpet and ask them to sit there,” Rohani told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Another local, Mutia, said the community had created an early warning system to help residents prepare for flooding.
“If water [in the river] rises and reaches a dangerous level, it will be announced through a speaker of a local mosque. The community unit head will announce what time the flood is expected to come and ask us to prepare ourselves,” Mutia said.
Mutia also said that the community unit head kept telling residents not to throw household waste into the river, as this could contribute to flooding.
“The community and city administration are working hand in hand to keep the river clean to prevent floods. The officers from the Jakarta Environment Agency clean the trash from the river every day, and we locals do our part by disposing of our waste properly in the trash can,” she said.
Mutia said the community had felt the impact of the joint flood prevention effort. “Since the river was dredged several years ago and locals dispose of their waste properly, we have never experienced floods during the rainy season,” she said, adding that the last flood in the area occurred around three years ago.
However, a different opinion was expressed by Wintarsih, a 48-year-old woman from RW 08 in North Kembangan subdistrict, West Jakarta. She said even though the city administration had dredged the river in front of her house and officers of the environment agency cleaned it daily, floods still inundated her residence every year.
Wintarsih’s community unit is located in a riverbank. Most members of the community are newcomers from Central Java and have built semipermanent wooden houses in the area. Her community unit is the only one affected by floods every year, as the upper-class housing complexes in the surrounding area all sit on higher ground.
Wintarsih claimed the city administration gave the community minimum assistance during the floods.
“I only remember the city administration gave us assistance twice, years ago. First it gave us instant noodles and rice, and the second time it gave us cleaning equipment. However, over time, we have learned how to take care of ourselves during the floods,” Wintarsih told the Post.
She said she had prepared for floods as the rainy season had begun. “I have already bought medicine for common diseases during floods, like diarrhea and eczema. I have also emptied the space under my bed of all things.”
Wintarsih said she also purposefully constructed a slanted floor in her house to allow water to flow easily during floods. “All the flood preparation puts my mind at ease. I will not panic even if my house is flooded when I am at work.”
Meanwhile, the Jakarta administration is bracing for the upcoming rainy season by clearing debris from several bodies of water like rivers, reservoirs, drainage ditches and lakes.
Jakarta Water Resources Agency head Juaini Yusuf said the city had prepared around 400 water pumps and had dug about 800 absorption wells around the capital city with a plan to increase the number to 1,000 wells by December.
Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) head Subejo said the agency had created a map that showed evacuation routes and shelter locations in 25 flood-prone areas and had informed and educated the residents about it.
However, both Wintarsih and Rohani, who live in two of the 25 flood-prone areas listed by the BPBD, said they had not been made aware of such a map.
