Three inches of rain fell on Jeddah and surrounding areas yesterday, resulting in the deaths of 77 people. There are still reports of people missing, so that number may rise. The area around King Abdulaziz University was particularly hard hit, with part of the supporting structure for the elevated Haramain Highway knocked down, forcing the closure of that route between Jeddah and Mecca. Southern Jeddah, where many buildings are substandard in their construction, also saw great damage.
How floods like this can happen in a modern metropolis of five million people is a good question. It needs not only answers, but answers that lead to direct action to ensure that similar deluges don’t happen again. The simple answer is that the city’s infrastructure was not able to handle the rain run-off. More important is why that is the case. On Wednesday, my part of west-central Florida received three-to-five inches of rain. No one died, even as the result of a traffic accident. Other than a few puddles an inch or two deep, the water was gone withing hours of the rain’s passing. My city has a population of about 52,000 people and nowhere near the financial assets of Jeddah. So what’s the difference?
Part of the difference is in geology: Florida is largely sand, with a limestone deep beneath the surface. Jeddah is also sandy, but the sand is mixed with clays, making them impermeable (that is, the water doesn’t ‘sink in’), and relatively shallow. That means that when water builds up, there’s no place for it to go other than to flow.
In comments to earlier posts on the flood, I argue that the principal problem is a deep shortage of competent city planning. City planning isn’t only about meeting immediate needs–though of course, those must be met. It is also about planning for the unusual, though not unexpected. It doesn’t rain much in the Kingdom, but when it rains, wadis flood. They’ve been doing that for millions of years. Even prehistoric Arabs of the Peninsula knew to avoid the wadis when it rained. That knowledge appears not to have been carried over to the modern cities, however.
Cities, no matter where they are, are strapped for funds. When they draw up their budgets, they allocate money toward things that need doing immediately. Things that happen rarely just don’t get funded. Hindsight shows how the funding decisions ended up being poor ones, but that tends to be the case everywhere, e.g. New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.
Also in comments, is an argument that the principal problem is corruption, that those whose responsibility it is to provide for public safety have instead taken development money and put it to their own, personal benefit. I suspect that’s at least partially true.
What can be done about future floods, though?
I suspect that nothing short of digging up major parts of the city to install appropriate flood drainage systems will do. It will be harder to do now than if it had been done as the city was growing. It will be much more expensive. It will also annoy people as streets are closed and, perhaps, houses and offices are condemned to make way for the drainage. Looking at cities in the US similar in geology to Jeddah, you also find—as in Los Angeles—open drainage canals, tens of meters wide and ten meters deep. While these canals make for great action scenes in films and on TV, they also move massive amounts of water out of the city and directly to the sea.
The Saudi media is, of course, reporting on the disaster. Some of the reporting is the to-be-expected ‘gung ho’ reportage: ‘We are on top of the problem!’ ‘People are being rescued!’ Other reporting, though, is more critical, pointing out that the disaster has a more proximate cause…
‘What happened was a man-made problem’
Michel Cousins | Arab NewsJEDDAH: The devastation caused by Wednesday’s flash floods in Jeddah could be seen across the city. One of the worst hit areas was Sulaimaniyah District, especially around the junction between Abdullah Sulaiman Street and the Harmain Expressway, near the city’s King Abdulaziz University. It was as if it had been hit by a tsunami. Hundreds of mangled cars littered the area. There were buses on their sides, cars thrown on top of other cars, others almost flattened beyond recognition. Reports that over 2,000 vehicles had been destroyed seemed no exaggeration.
…
Saudi Gazette reports that damages from the flood may exceed a billion Saudi riyals, US $270 million.
Thanks to Ahmed, at Saudi Jeans, here’s a YouTube video of the car-nage. It’s not clear to me whether this is where cars were swept by the floods or if the location might be where the vehicles were moved to clear the streets. I suspect the former.
UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous commenter, here’s a link to a Facebook photo album with 185 pictures of the flooding, from various sources.
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November:27:2009 - 06:34
Who would like an incompetent corrupted cocktail? Damn there goes my stateboard and BMX track and my other wish list down the drain.
Here I come America 2010!
Now that I have gotten the satisfaction of swine being tatooed everywhere I like to see the deserving bellies set ablaze.
November:27:2009 - 09:54
Here’s the Jeddah flood Facebook group with almost 200 pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30684363&id=1141674718&subject=188573576805&ref=mf
One question (of many) that should be answered is why such massive destruction? It’s rained harder in Jeddah in the past. There are unconfirmed reports that the problem had to do with shutting off what little outlets to the Red Sea the city has, possibly due to ongoing public works. Also: The King Abdullah St. underpass At Sitteen that filled up may have been a result of the Baladiyyah specifically telling the contractor when it was built not to install drainage due to the added cost. This was claimed by a person involved with the contractor that built the underpass.
November:27:2009 - 11:44
Thanks! I’m updating the post to link to Facebook.
November:27:2009 - 13:39
It looks like it may rain again tonight. Simply splendid. I heard that the main canal in Jeddah is actually below sea level. Wouldn’t suprise me at all if it is true. There is often water sitting in it that doesn’t drain.
I live in North Jeddah- and there has been a lot of new sewage and I think drainage works going in. It is very difficult at times because of road closures etc. Certainly our flooding isn’t anything like further south- but it still seems dispoportionate to the amount of rain.
FYI there are also problems with the housing up at KAUST due to the rain.
Time to go to FB,
November:27:2009 - 15:43
All those deaths. I can understand this happening in an old city like Jeddah, but KAUST has the same issues. In the U.S. we have huge drainage channels in Texan and Californian cities that are dry most of the time and only serve their purpose during torrents. Then they are appreciated.
With the increase in global temperatures increased rainfall over Arabia is to be expected. (It seems counter-intuitive, but basically hot air holds more moisture that a cold front can wring out of it.)
November:27:2009 - 21:58
Imagine if the drainage would flow to retention basins and reservoirs. Two problems in Jeddah could be addressed:
• water supply
• storm drainage
November:27:2009 - 22:24
There’s also a major problem with the water table rising across the Jeddah area, especially in those places that use septic tanks for sewage. The water comes out (as designed) but then saturates the soil. It sounds silly, but it’s a big deal. The city, apparently, was never really planned. Like Topsy, ‘it just growed.’
The water wants to flow to the Red Sea. I think channeling it to permit the water to do so is probably the easier solution.
I’m not sure the rain is reliably constant enough to warrant a major reservoir, though.
November:28:2009 - 03:04
The municipal mayor of Jeddah is going to take a lot of (rightful) flak for this. He’s been harping for years about his drainage project that has blocked up traffic in Jeddah for a long while. Thankfully I was in Mecca for the holidays at the time, and a call to my neighbor has assured me that my part of town has seen little damage. Still, the pics floating around show horrible damage, and the death toll is terrible.
November:30:2009 - 20:01
why is every one comparin dis incident with nethin in US…..y shud we care bout other countries n der draineage systems..JEDDAH is in trouble n so r thousand of ppl livin in it…LIVES r so more important dan deez borders….plz ppl watch ur actions n pray for d beterment of human race…surely Allah isnt happy with us n we r bein punished ..its high tym ….we shud realise….Allah hum mahfuzna…..Oh Allah keep us save from ne such future clamity…ameen!!!!
January:17:2010 - 20:58
we need a new full infrastructure system for the drain problem,
and also we need to force the flood to move through its old way,
as the arabian say says (translated): “the flood will allways remeber its old way” which means ,, no changes should have been made,, u cannot change the flood way,,because if u do ,,such problems will surly happen. but unfotenately that is excactly what they did!! but for what?
MONEY TALKS ppl.
and i support the reason of corruption 100%, the’ve been stealing the public money for those past years, hopefully they get caught and punished as well.