Chennai: Sky clears, yet no letting guard down – Times of India

CHENNAI: The rain may have ceased for the moment, but Greater Chennai Corporation is not letting its guard down.
The civic body plans to keep the pumps, boats and rescue material at hand, asking the officials concerned to stay prepared for any emergency. “We will pay the idling charges [for the boats]. We have hired about 199 pumps and own about 448. We also have 37 pumps that have been procured from other departments such as agriculture, fire and rescue services and the state highways. Apart from this, we will focus on reducing public inconvenience as much as possible by filling up craters on roads formed due to the rain. Most of the boats will also stay put in the locations where they are stationed,” said a senior official.
About 82 streets in 31 locations had some minor water stagnation problems, and the civic body continued to pump out water these places on Friday. In Manali zone, a flood alert was issued after the inflow in the Kosasthalaiyar river increased and PWD officials began discharging water at 45,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) from the Poondi reservoir at night. Corporation officials shifted 62 families from there to a school.
Officials of the corporation’s storm water drain department are in the meantime studying the network and identifying the reasons for flooding in some areas during the rain triggered by the two latest weather systems. “The central team that will assess the flood damage to provide relief will arrive on Monday. We will take them to the locations that were worst affected,” said a corporation official.
The civic body is also keeping a list ready of all the roads that were damaged in the rain. “After the monsoon ends, we will begin a study of the roads and drains and propose projects that will help the city. Most areas had problems of blockages in some the drains didn’t have the right slope and gradient; and, in others, they were very old. We will redo these drains and also take up work on several canals,” said an official.