Early warning

New Straits Times
02-09-2011
Early warning
Edition: Main/Lifestyle
Section: Main Section
Type: Editorial

ALERTING the public on impending floods some two days before their actual occurrence will be a great boon towards ensuring the success of relief operations. In short, lives are not lost and damage to property is minimised because the flooding has been anticipated. And all of this is set to happen in June, according to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID). From June onwards, the monitoring of four of Malaysia's major river systems, in conjunction with meteorological indicators such as air pressure, humidity, wind speed, temperature and previous flood patterns, can be interpreted using a RM5 million software to produce an early flood warning system. This is said to be of similar standards as those used in Japan for prediction of tsunamis.

The usefulness of such a system cannot be underestimated given the recent loss of lives and damage to both public and private property running into millions of ringgit due to floods in areas prone to flooding and otherwise. Nevertheless, it is not meant to replace flood mitigation projects. The latter is meant to prevent floods from happening. The early warning system, though, is accepting of the floods but expects to produce a state of preparedness at every level of relief work, which currently is handled at the state and district levels and coordinated at the federal level by the National Security Council.
At present, the DID is designing an early warning dissemination platform which includes the use of the short messaging service (SMS), radio, television and the Internet because (as argued by the department) the data is only as good as its dissemination. How the data is disseminated is, of course, important because the need is to find out which, among the many ways of broadcasting the alarm, is the best. However, even with the most effective dissemination platform identified, there remains a need to properly target the risk signals gathered. For who receives the alarm calls early is what determines success. While the public must be warned about the danger that is about to befall them, without proper coordination, this could lead to panic on the ground. Therefore, other than the community at large, those who must receive the warning early are risk-management workers trained to put the relief operations on alert and ready for action. Consequently, for any early warning system to work the drill, involving the workers and the community is pivotal. No early warning system for whatever form of disaster relief is going to work if a state of preparedness at the community and other relevant levels is absent.

(Copyright 2011)
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