Don’t get political with MoBay flooding
Can someone tell me why we believe we have to politicise everything in this country? The first vapours from the rainwater that flooded Montego Bay on Wednesday had not yet begun to drift back into the sky when people were already finding a way to cast blame politically on why the city was flooded. Watching the videos on social media, the scenes resembled those you would see from disasters in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh or Cambodia. Millions of gallons of muddy water rushed on to the streets of downtown Montego Bay, washing away everything in its path — cars and buildings. One would think that people would be of the mind to start mobilising help for the people who lost their cars, especially the taxi drivers whose cars I saw on top of others after the water had receded. What we got instead were social media puns about ‘prosperity’ in reference to the ruling party’s slogan ‘Poverty to Prosperity’.
MILLIONS IN LOSSES
How low can we go? The way some people reacted, you would think some of these supporters of the Opposition were the ones who orchestrated to have a month’s worth of rainfall lash the city in just over three hours, creating the floodwater that wreaked millions of dollars in property loss and damage.
Thankfully, we have not heard of any loss of life, but I am sure there are a few people who have horror stories to tell.
The next thing you heard was how money was not supplied for drains to be cleaned and all that stuff.
If people bothered to take the time to look at what actually happened maybe, just maybe, they would have no need to descend to the depths they have on this disaster.
According to a representative from a weather bureau that tracks rainfall in the country, St James gets about 101 centimetres of rainfall each month.
Montego Bay got almost all of that amount in three hours on Wednesday. Also, the amount of rainfall that came down would have overwhelmed every drain in the city, even if they were squeaky clean.
These things happen. Nature doesn’t play by our rules and we need to respect all of that, especially with the effects of global warming that have been making life a living hell for people across the globe.
Sometimes, just sometimes, we can show our human side and leave the political animals under our beds.
The people of Montego Bay need help. Let’s focus on that instead of trying to cast blame.
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