Kuta's busy streets regularly awash

Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post, Kuta | Sat, 03/07/2009 2:31 PM  |  Bali 

After two consecutive scorching hot days earlier in the week, it was raining hard Wednesday evening and foreign tourists walking on Jl. Kartika in Kuta frowned as they saw two sections of the street were completely flooded. 

The busy street, where dozens of hotels and restaurants are located, is an alternative route, a shortcut, leading to the famous Kuta Beach in Badung regency from the nearby Ngurah Rai International Airport. 

But it was jammed with a long queue of motorists who slowly struggled to get through sections with flood water up to 60 centimeters high, one of which was located near the five-star Discovery Kartika Plaza Hotel. 

After the rainwater subsided the following day, it was clear that many drainage holes along the two sections were completely blocked by thick sand, while others were filled with all kinds of garbage. 

Suci Ari, a member of the Bali Hotel Public Relations Association and the spokeswoman of the Santika Hotel, said that this was a common sight on the street. 

"Of course it is disturbing tourists and it has been like this for a considerable time," she told The Jakarta Post on Friday. 

"The problem is no one cares because the drainage system is a public facility." 

But when it comes to guests' comfort, businesses along the street usually make the necessary efforts to solve the problem, at least on their own premises. 

Suci said the section in front of her hotel used to be swamped whenever it rained, so the management decided to make an additional hole that connected to the drainage system. 

I Wayan Sugawa, head of the Badung Highway and Water Management Agency, said he had not received any reports of flooded streets as none of his officers had monitored the area on that rainy night. 

"We will check the drainage holes on the street immediately and see what we can do," he told the Post on Thursday. 

"Usually the water cannot drain away because the holes are clogged with sand as well as litter from the street." 

He said the street was equipped with a 5-kilometer sewerage system on both sides, up to 1.5 meters in height and width, which "should be enough to stop the street from flooding." 

"Piles of garbage and sand inside the system, however, made it difficult for rainwater to drain away," Sugawa said. 

He said the agency had a program to clear materials blocking waterways in the regency but it had yet to reach Jl. Kartika as they were still working on Jl. Arjuna and Jl. Ken Dedes. 

In nearby Denpasar, seven of the 11 villages in the Sidakarya district were flooded early this year after the five-meter-wide Punggawa River broke its banks. 

The Denpasar mayor said the flood was caused by an inadequate water drainage system as well as garbage clogging up the sewers. Meanwhile, the Bali provincial administration plans to map the flood-prone areas, after disastrous floods hit the island on Jan. 11, to make the disaster management system function more effectively.