03 December, 2006

The Rain Effect

I've heard quite a few crazy stories about flooded streets[by flooded I mean 3-5ft of water] all over UAE...Quoting one of my friends,"UAE has opened the world's first under water city on its national day........ its commonly known as Sharjah..........", so I was wondering if these stories were true & if anyone had any photo's to show cause the news papers seem to have skipped the part where it would it say how the drainage system in many areas sucked, that the authorities were late to react etc.....

11 comments:

Kiwi Boy said...

Here's one: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/wicked_danu/Random%20Pictures/SharjahRoads.jpg

It was on the way to al-Dhaid and this dork in a black Land Cruiser was driving down the road at full speed, splashing the muck on everyone.

Anonymous said...

Stained - it's always been the case. Yes Sharjah needs to get it's act in order, on drainage and the road system.

Not to get defensive or anything - but the city gets so little rain, if you count the number of times this has happened in the past 30 years, I think it's very few times, so perhaps such planning may not be at the front end of the city planners.

However, yes I AGREE, Sharjah surely needs to fine tune the infrastructure.

Stained said...

i know it happens rarely now days...but there was a time when rain was not that rare....i've lived here for 20 years...& every year the rain seems to be dwindling....
I live in dubai & it was a minor hiccup fixed in a few hours...but the other cities have a problem....everytime it would rain..it would get flooded in sharjah...i remember getting stranded in sharjah several years ago due to this

Keef said...

I had to go to a venue near the Sharjah border this evening - from Jebel Ali it took three hours. When we left at 11pm, traffic was still queueing up to get into Sharjah in a tailback way past the Garhoud bridge. Other people we were supposed to meet, who live in Sharjah, were unable to leave their houses because of the flooding. Outrageous!

Mme Cyn said...

There is nothing inherently wrong with the roads; there is in fact an excellent drainage system throughout Sharjah. If you look at the roadsides, you will see the drains.

The problem lies with maintenance. Most of the road drains are the type that have a closed setting for the dry season and an open setting for the rainy season, since 99% of the rain here happens between November and March. However, the drains get left in the "open" position all year and fill with sand. Then when it rains, the water tries to go into the already filled drains and instead of soaking away as it is meant to, it simply creates mud in the drains which then will not take any more water, hence the flooded roads. If the municipality would do some maintenance work, this would not happen.

Grumpy Goat said...

All it would take to keep the drainage system free of sand, silt, fag packets and Spinneys bags would be these DI-K2 units (or similar approved).

Provided, of course, that after the deluge had drained away the Municipality sent the guys out to reset the covers to 'dry season'.

Rejected said...

In Ajman a family had their ground floor flat messed up when the rain got inside!!

John B. Chilton said...

ali,

"there should be a backup plan"

Good one.

Reminds me of the Bill Cosby joke where Noah tells God it will only take 40 days of rain to flood the world because the sewers will back up.

Mme Cyn said...

rejected -- That's the most frustrating thing in my book -- the property damage. I saw sports cars and sedans up over their wheel wells in water in the parking lots around Satwa. I live in a flat and drive a 4x4 so I'm not affected, but honestly! I remember in the last big rain Arabian Ranches got flooded and villas were damaged there too... anybody know how the 'new construction' fared this time around?

Stained said...

my friend lives in the meadows & she had no complains...atleast none reached my ears....

Anonymous said...

the camel race track area (and the near by nad alsheba) had so many pools of water it should be renamed the "lakes race track"...the camels would probably have to swim half the distance!

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