•The Expressway was not spared as water remained stagnant on sections of the 27 km road with motorists stuck for some time.
•Being the beginning of the week, commuters in Public Service Vehicles or personal cars, are eager to reach their destination on time.
Image: SCREENGRAB
Almost eight hours and counting, heavy rains pounded in Kenya's capital from Sunday night to Monday morning.
The nonstop rains have been witnessed across all 17 subcounties.
Areas in which floods were experienced included sections of the Central Business District, Westlands, and Eastleigh among others.
Photos and videos circulated on social media platforms showed most areas were flooded with vehicles, commuters even bodaboda riders struggling to navigate.
From walkways, roads and drainages, all sides were flooded leaving no room for human movement.
The Expressway was not spared as water remained stagnant on sections of the 27 km road with motorists stuck for some time.
A video seen by the Star shows a Chinese man trying to direct vehicles in some less flooded sections on the expressway.
He wore a green reflector and held an umbrella to shield himself from rain as his legs were almost halfway submerged in water.
The expressway, with 18.2km on the ground and 8.9km elevated, is a class A, four-lane dual carriageway with a design speed of at least 80km per hour
The dual carriageway has 11 interchanges at Mlolongo, Standard Gauge Railway, JKIA, Eastern Bypass, Southern Bypass, Capital Centre, Haile Selassie Avenue, Museum Hill, Westlands, and James Gichuru Road.
With rains in Nairobi, comes traffic snarl-ups.
Being the beginning of the week, commuters in Public Service Vehicles or personal cars, are eager to reach their destination on time.
From Kenyatta Avenue, Uhuru highway Haile Selassie traffic started to build up.
This recurring issue turns the capital's streets into an obstacle course, compelling residents to navigate flooded roads by wading, slogging, hopping, skipping, and even using makeshift trolley pullers during the rainy season.
The insufficiency of the drainage system becomes evident as the rains expose its dysfunctional state.
In January, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja revealed why dealing with floods in the city is an uphill task.
He said the city's drainage system has a fixed capacity.
Sakaja explained that despite having the Green Army clear most of the clogged drainages across the city, it was still not enough.
"We have already cleared most drainages which were done by the green army but when you pour excess water, it will flood but it will settle," Sakaja said.
"However, to solve the flooding situation, we need to invest heavily in the expansion of drainage,"
Green Army is a group of youths contracted by the county to keep the city clean by sweeping, unclogging drainages and collecting garbage.
The county boss highlighted that with a colossal amount required, it remains a dilemma on what actions to take on Nairobi's drainage system.
"Now you prioritise that expansion for an occurrence which happens once or twice a year costing billions or do you put medicine in hospitals?" Sakaja posed.
"Do you have a permanent solution to a temporary problem? Do we have the resources?"
Governor Sakaja noted that if his administration was to balance spending priority, apart from the normal mitigation, there are other projects whose needs are to be prioritised.
"So the cleaning and unclogging keeps going on but when there is a sudden heavy amount of downpour, it will flood but settle. But huge investments are needed in the actual expansion if we're to sort out the drainages," Sakaja added.
Image: FILE