Al-Marsad Newspaper: The writer, Dr. Badr bin Saud, commented on the shocking rainy situation that the city of Jeddah witnessed recently, revealing the most prominent solutions to confront the heavy rains that were applied in “Nogales”.
grandmother and nogales
Badr bin Saud said, in his article entitled “A Tale of Two Cities: Jeddah and Nogales,” published in the newspaper “Okaz”: “The city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was subjected to a shocking wave of rain, on November 24 and 25, and the competent authorities estimated its quantities at about 182 millimeters, especially in Eastern Jeddah region, and the number is large compared to the rains of 2009 and 2011, which ranged between 74 millimeters and 111 millimeters. The beginning, all possible future developments.”
Business maintenance
He pointed out: “The amendments, even if they were simple, will affect the entire city, and among the examples is what the Municipality said, through its speaker, that the rainwater drainage network covers only 20% of the city of Jeddah, and its indication of the presence of 15 precautionary dams, which are supposed to have been, in theory, prevented.” The arrival of 49 million cubic meters of rainwater transported into Jeddah and saved it from drowning, as if the city’s infrastructure can withstand its internal rains, and the former explains the large number of maintenance work in it, as a mistake in one place will lead to a greater mistake in another place.
discharge water
He explained: “The file of water drainage in Jeddah began with the engineer Muhammad Al-Farsi in 1979, or 43 years ago, at a cost of $133 million, and it was rotated after Al-Farsi and before Saleh Al-Turki by 5 trustees, to the extent that its declared costs reached in one year nearly $9 billion. The tragedy is still present and recurring, but the solutions are not far away, and among the evidence is a border city called (Nogales) shared by the Mexican states of Sonora and the American Louisiana, and when this city is swept by a heavy wave of rain, it is noticed that the Mexican part of it drowns and the American part leaves it quickly and in record time, Although the city is the same and the amount of rain has not changed, Jubail Industrial City in the Kingdom is a model experience, and it can be employed according to the needs of the city of Jeddah.
Sea the people
And he added: “More than 30 kilometers of the urban area of the city of Jeddah consists of the Mardom Sea, and the valleys were close to the sea before human interventions, and in order for the situation to return to its previous state, the issue, according to specialists, requires the construction of a water channel with a length of 65 kilometers to receive rain and torrential waters from the region.” The industrial channel in the south of Jeddah, and then work on its delivery and disposal in North Obhur, and the water canal can be included within the projects of the Central Jeddah Company, and benefit from it as a new sea front, circumnavigating the city from north to south, while raising the capacity of the waterways from 60 mm to 100 mm. At the very least, allocate places in the lanes to sort silt, plankton and waste, in a way that prevents blockage of internal channels and filling the streets with water.
storage strategic
He continued: “In addition to the Ministry of Environment’s focus on the strategic storage of rainwater, and obliging the public and private sectors, business owners, and ordinary house dwellers, to put tanks in their buildings to save rainwater, and in the manner in force in the diplomatic quarter in Riyadh.”