PUB ops centre looks out for floods

Staff use CCTV to monitor drains and canals and find ways to improve drainage

By Grace Chua, The Straits Times, 8 Nov 2012

WITH Singapore heading into year-end wet weather caused by the north-east monsoon, floods may result, but the authorities now have another weapon - an operations centre - to fight back.

The facility, in operation since April, has staff working round the clock to monitor video footage from canals and drains.

The 171 sq m centre, run by national water agency PUB at the Environment Building, has a full wall of screens and three staff members per shift keeping tabs.

It has already proven its worth, with video footage helping improve drainage at one site on Tampines Street 81.

Mr Choy Wai Kwong, the PUB's deputy director of its catchment and waterways department, said being able to replay camera footage of a flood site lets engineers see where the water is coming from and why it is not flowing away quickly.

At Tampines, the PUB found that the drain was not big enough to channel away all the rainwater. It worked with the Housing Board to enlarge it, and the project was completed this year.

The PUB has had closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras trained on canals and drains since last January. By the end of the year, it will also install CCTV cameras at 56 flood-prone areas to add to the existing 66 cameras.

Staff members do not just check the CCTV cameras in canals and drains. They also get heavy-rain alerts from the National Environment Agency's Meteorological Services Division, traffic information from the Land Transport Authority and reports of flash floods from the public.

Mr Choy, 46, is woken at all hours - such as at 3am in May, when the Bukit Timah Canal overflowed after a bout of heavy rain - to deal with the problem.

Once the centre verifies there is a flood, it sends some of its 40 to 50 PUB officers or 300 contractors to investigate and clear blockages, if any.

In analysing flood footage to find out why the incident occurred, it may start a drainage improvement project. At the moment, there are 37 such ongoing projects.

The PUB is replacing 6,000 drain inlets in flood-prone areas with better-designed ones that have vertical and horizontal gratings, which let rainwater drain even when the horizontal grating is blocked, by September next year. Earlier this year, it tested them at Thomson Road.

The new operations centre also monitors Singapore's potable water and Newater supply operations. By the end of next year, it will also check on other operations such as used water and raw water.

The public can report flash-flood incidents or check on the flood situation by calling the PUB's 24-hour call centre on 1800-284-6600.