Typhoon Sepat, heralded as one of the strongest storms to hit the island this year, has brought strong winds and heavy rains.

The storm has also highlighted the serious lack of attention that government authorities place on operating and maintaining the public infrastructure. From north to south, our dams, pumping stations and floodgates are being tested to the limit to see if they can withstand the pressure of a strong typhoon.

Inevitably, many will be forced to go without electricity and fresh water for several days, after the storm blows away.

Of course, there is no country in the world that can build and maintain infrastructure that is completely impervious to high-powered storms.

However, we never cease to be amazed at the way our government is unwilling to take measures ensuring we can maintain even the most basic level of public services after storms pass through.

After all, we live in a typhoon-prone area and the government and people have long ago learned to expect that storms like these will occur every summer.

But instead of shoring up dams, pumping stations and floodgates, we always hear excuses about why we are forced to go without fresh water this year, or why water was able to slip through levees and flood into our neighborhoods.

Instead of placing a priority on maintaining the public infrastructure, our government is far more keen on wasting public resources on politically charged missions that produce few, if any, tangible results.

While we have seen officials devote countless hours to changing names, signs and symbols on public buildings, we have heard very little about what they are doing to shore up infrastructure that people rely on to live their daily lives.

While the government once promoted a large budget aimed at boosting public services, many of the items have been drowned in political gridlock and both parties prefer to blame each other rather than work out a compromise.

Around the island, floodgates are falling into disrepair, while we lack enough trained personnel to operate the gates properly and in a timely manner. At the same time, while we enjoy plenty of rainfall every year, we lack enough space in public dams to store this water so that everyone can enjoy a plentiful supply all year-round.

The situation in northern Taiwan is especially poor, with the Shihmen Dam constantly being forced to shut down operations because the water gets muddy every time a powerful storm passes through.

While shoring up dams and flood control equipment may not be the most exciting issue to discuss at election time, we hope that both major parties will learn a lesson from the current typhoon season.

That lesson is that the people of this country deserve a far better level of public services and utilities than what they are currently getting.

Whoever wins the upcoming presidential election should prioritize the revamping of our aging public infrastructure.

In order to raise Taiwan to “first-world” status, the people of the country need to enjoy a standard of living that is comparable to that of other developed countries.

In order for that standard of living to be achieved, money will have to be spent building, maintaining and repairing major public infrastructure projects.

Besides flood control infrastructure, there are many bridges and roads around the island that are in serious disrepair and in danger of suffering fatal damage during this typhoon season.

Many of the major bridges in use around the island were built in a bygone era, when the vast majority of people here did not have their own automobiles and there was far less vehicular traffic on the roads.

The recent collapse of a freeway bridge in the U.S. state of Minnesota, as well as a new bridge built in mainland China, should serve as warnings to officials here that it is important to make sure public infrastructure does not become dangerous. Unfortunately, these warnings have almost certainly fallen on deaf ears, as politicians here are far more interested in arguing about abstract concepts than they are in actually governing the country.

It will probably take a major disaster before our officials pay more attention to the decrepit state of bridges and roads, many of which have been in use for decades.

Even if a major disaster occurs, it is most likely that our politicians will not pay attention for long before they are once again diverted by senseless arguments over Taiwan’s political status or what name we should use when trying to rejoin the United Nations.

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