Shah Alam residents want solutions
The Star 08/03/2006

I WAS deeply touched by the action of the Sultan of Selangor in summoning the Shah Alam Mayor and other top officers to his palace to hold them accountable for the recent massive flood that wreaked havoc in Shah Alam, “Sultan summons officials” (The Star, March 3).

Before your exclusive report on Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah’s action, I was beginning to sense that no one at all would be held accountable, and that quick action was going to be substituted with a lot more rhetoric.

What I saw happening was everyone in a position of responsibility indirectly saying they were not responsible or accountable. The Sultan’s action was a ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy scenario.

My family and I were marooned on the 12th floor of a 17-storey apartment block in TTDI Jaya on Feb 26 until 6pm. Then, for nearly three days we did not have a lift to go down. For my wife and I, in our fifties, it was agony. Imagine the plight of mothers with young children, senior citizens, or sick people on the floors above us for three trying days.

It is these thoughts and the sights I witnessed from the vantage point of my 12th floor window that made me decide to initiate a website to provide any form of support we can give to residents of Shah Alam.

Residents in Shah Alam and friends in the Klang Valley who care have agreed to join hands in this project to complement any other proactive work that will be initiated by civic-minded people in Shah Alam.

The website, called banjir shah alam, will be functioning in about a week.

We want to see permanent solutions. We want to see accountability. We want results, not rhetoric.

We will use many of the Sultan’s pointers as a starting step to monitor results which will bring benefit to the Shah Alam residential community.

HAROLD GOMEZ,
Banjir Shah Alam
Support Group,
Shah Alam.