I wrote a big article to be published in the local paper, Island.
The editor did not published it.
I was critical of the Public Work Department (PWD) and the local Rajapaksa goons carrying out the shoddy job.
They did the typical patch work on the road to our house and driving my Peugeot car on this road was dangerous with big pot holes.
Besides, now I believe that the road to our house was built on a ancient stream dried up fully. The original stream may have found a more suitable lower plane and it is there little over 1 kilometers below.
The end result was me buying second hand books on Geography from local book sales. My elder sister's books on Geography were a treasure house.
She is no more.
Let me finish Rajapaksa Goons story.
There goons have the subcontracts from what would have been our PWD.
They do a shoddy job two days prior to the rain.
With the rain everything including sand get washed away to the floodplain.
I used to walk this stretch and watch the current level of water and the sand deposits.
My worry was one day our road would get washed sway and I would not be able to drive my Peugeot on a rainy day..
By this time there were big holes on the bottom plate of the car.
Children had to take their feet off the ground to the seat to prevent nasty bumps when I accidentally hit a "rock bump" on the road to our house.
These goons collect the sand that got washed away and any other sand collected during the rain.
They use the same sand over and over again.
This was a luxury business for them.
Repeated notices to everybody including Engineers of the Engineering Faculty did not bear results.
These guys were not local and I got the Panideniya guys especially the three wheeler drivers to be proactive.
After about 2 years this practice stopped.
I do not know how.
My car was out of service and I decided never to buy a car while living in Panideniya.
I saw a picture of Panideniya Bridge with water up to the brim this time round, after the heavy rsin.
It did not happen last time round.
I would expand on sand, cement and granite in another piece and continue on the constituents of the River Bank or levee.
Flood Plains
Land both sides of the river belongs to the river.
It does not belong to people or PWD or politicians.
Our political guy who was doing shoddy jobs under Chandrika got elevated to high grounds and ended up building Massive Motorways when he was the president.
Environmental studies were done only on paper not on proper soil or floodplains.
Proclamation
Major Floods come in 100 year cycles.
The Next big one is worse than the previous worst flood.
The 100 year cycle shortens with every major flood until it becomes perennial in a country of 100 rivers.
We had over 100 rivers.
It has probably come down to, may be 80, now.
Levees are both natural and artificial
1. Highest Water Level (HWL)
This is the highest water level achieved in a past worst flood.
2. Low water channel
This is the normal water channel which varies according to the moonsoon rain pattern
3. Flood plane
This is the area reserved for minor floods.
4. River side elevation
5. River banquette
This is where Ceylon Hotel Industry has built their Hotel Chains.
6. Levee Crown
This is the Summit of the river bank.
I skip the levels on the land side and they are similar to the river side.
7. Protected Land on the land side
This is supposed to be safe area for living and construction of buildings assuming that the next major flood is 100 years from now.
It is a false assumption, assuming we live up to 80 years.
Nobody lives long enough to witness 2 major floods.
BERM
This is not natural but an artificial reinforcement on the landslide to prevent water seepage due to high water pressure from the river side.
Water seepage through air bubbles trapped in here on the land side is a big liability.
That is the major reason, landslides occur close to riverbeds.
The BERM does not prevent major landslides.
All these are assumed at one gravity planet of ours.
In different planets with different gravity levels the rivers and river beds are entirely a different kettle of fish.
Here I want to digress and create my own hypothesis about our solar system.
I think I have another similar piece here in this blog site.
1. We are a bi-solar planetary system.
2. Our sun is the smaller one of the two.
3. The big one is dead.
We cannot visualize it.
Fact that, it is not visible does not preclude its presence.
4. If the big one is not there we would be dragged to mere wilderness of our Universe due to rapidly increasing Expansion.
5. I have created a Principle called Uncertainty Principle.
According to that principle this World should not exist.
Thereby "I" should not exist.
I exist on practical terms
Earth exists.
Therefore I had to create two solar system theory to establish the relative stability of our system which is unnatural in universal or global sense.
It is all an illusion of some sort.
That is the bottom line and is the entry point to simple Buddhist Thinking.
