As a civil engineer and environmental analyst, a crucial part of my job is to inspect construction sites. After the floods Kuwait experienced in the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed disastrous sites where not only severe environmental violations were detected, but also the health and safety of the workers was greatly compromised.
As severe floods are possible during the next period, it’s important to prepare your construction site to incur minimum damage.
The following measures can be taken to prepare your construction site for the next flood:
1) Understand the history of your site
A) Has your construction site experienced flooding before?
B) Is the land you are building on prone to flooding?
C) Essentially you have to know if you are in a high-risk flood area.
You can access flood maps in Kuwait through several resources such as:
www.globalfloodmap.org/Kuwait
www.floodmap.net
www.thinkhazard.org
2) Create a flood plan
The plan should include clear instructions on how to protect staff, hazardous equipment and minimize the risk of pollution. The plan should also determine the necessary equipment in case of a flood occurrence such as sandbags. Contact information should be readily available incase coordination with other entities is needed. All measures against gas leaks, electrical hazards, and other site risks should be addressed. Another important issue I’ve noticed during my experience, is that a lot of avoidable monetary losses were incurred due to ill-storage of construction material. Your flood plan should take into consideration what needs to be where and how to transport it.
3) Insurance, insurance, insurance!
Floods can be a huge financial drain on contracts and construction companies. Make sure your site is insured against floods, and make sure you have good insurance!
While some floods are forecasted in the upcoming period, floods can also be unpredictable which is exactly why you need to prepare your construction site today. Know your flood-risk, make sure your flood plan is communicated to all your staff members and workers, and get ahead of your insurance.
Blog post by Farah Al Saeed, Civil Engineer, Environmental Public Authority