The current floods in various parts and/or counties are really alarming, even as people blame Mother Nature for our own mistakes and greed. Global warming may have something to do with flooding, but human actions and greed have played bigger role.
Many are really perplexed at the level of flooding in Nairobi, Narok and the environs. There is no reason to be puzzled; the chickens are coming home to roost. Effects of years of poor planning, neglect of the environment and unsustainable development are beginning to register.
Better get used as this is likely to be the new norm. These floods have not yet claimed life in a big scale but are only a matter of time. We are reaping where we have so carelessly sowed; sleepwalking down a road to assured destruction.
In ideal situation, the arrival of the rainy season should be good omen to farmers countrywide. However, this year portends gloomy.
Over the past few years, we have experienced severe floods and other natural disasters. But too often, the response from the county and national government has been chaotic and reactive after we are hit. Through floods, we have lost lives and property worth millions destroyed completely.
Because changes in the climate and weather patterns are constant; adequate awareness and preparation is urgently needed for the unexpected but the planning should, like the weather pattern, be constant.
While it is vital to have mechanisms for urgent fixes to address unexpected tragedies, it is worth exploring more long-term ideas and planning better response to disasters, especially floods that are increasingly becoming a perennial problem in the country.
Floods and other recent tragedies like collapsed buildings and fire tragedy in slums and cholera outbreak due to torrential rain and/or foods have consistently proved disastrous. However, we are always caught off guard, precisely because we have failed to learn from our past mistakes and get things right.
One expert in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation once put it that people living in swamps should leave before the swamp swallows them. The question is: has the government thought of solving the massive housing problems, especially in and around places like Budalang’i, Narok and cities like Nairobi that have been experiencing this menace.
It is unwise to limit the effects of floods to displacement of people from their homes. The implications of heavy rains and flooding goes beyond a temporary housing inconvenience.
There's the consistent destruction of crops, disruption of food production, which ultimately cause food shortage hunger. Government must prioritise disaster risk reduction in its plans and critically make funds available for emergency response because lack of funding greatly impedes quick response in terms of timely assistance to victims and their immediate families.
At a time when the country is facing grave disaster threats, hunger and the economy facing possibility of prolonged stress due to Covid-19 that nearly destroyed Africa, the government should put in place measures to help those who will most likely be left homeless and hungry as a result of flooding today and in future.
Advocate of High Court of Kenya
