Another rainy season is here with its attendant hopes, trepidation and anxiety. Farmers, especially see it as the arrival of another planting season characterised by hard work, at the end of which is expected a bountiful harvest.
But lurking behind all this excitement of the new rains is fear: the fear of flooding and of the loss of life and property.
Regrettably added to the mix of what we have to deal with anytime there is a downpour is the flooding of our roads. Dual carriage roads, which are supposed to withstand flooding these days get flooded, sometimes dividing the road into two and in some instances the whole road is flooded.
The reasons for this are not farfetched. The one that readily comes to mind is the lack of drainage system and where they are created they are usually small. Sometimes the drainage also get chocked, which prevents the free flow of water in the cities.
Another act to be discouraged is builders and would-be-home owners not obeying existing laws on building construction, disobeying such laws could have dire consequences, like loss of life and property to flooding.
Every year, we go through this perennial cycle and we don’t seem to find a lasting solution, as the problem of flooding only gets worse as the days go by.
As a newspaper it is our considered opinion that, the government should deploy more funds to weather forecast, emergency management and the agencies in charge, to avoid the huge but preventable losses due to flooding and other related challenges that come with the rainy season.
We also call on the engineers and road contractors to confront boldly and frontally this new phenomenon that is eroding the gains we are making in the road sector by finding innovative ways to construct roads to avoid flooding.
The time to act is now.
