Caught pants down?

WHILE Gauteng was still trying to recover from the storm that lashed most parts of that province, Durban residents on Tuesday found themselves in the middle of the same uncontrollable floods.

With very little warning, people had to deal with torrential rains and ferocious winds that caused an orgy of destruction on a scale that has not been seen in recent years in KwaZulu-Natal.

While the violent storm only lasted a few hours, by the end of it lives had been lost, vehicles washed away, houses destroyed and panic had spread throughout the province.

With the clean-up operation already under way, perhaps it is time we start asking uncomfortable questions of those entrusted with the responsibility of keeping us safe when disaster strikes.

Did the destructive Durban storm catch the experts with their pants down? And if it did, how adequate is our early-warning mechanism?

It is not the first time that we ask this question of our authorities’ ability to respond to disaster. We asked the same question when a raging fire destroyed a chemical factory on South Coast Road earlier this year. If the forecast had been spot on, why were schools and businesses not closed for the day in anticipation of the storm?

Social media users speak of having received alerts from insurance companies only a few minutes before the storm lashed the city.

Surely we should expect better from our government disaster management units?

It is even more disturbing to hear Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs officials admitting that the brutality of the storm took them by surprise.

We will be the first to acknowledge that the department did issue a weather alert early in the week, but this was woefully inadequate.

Judging by the level of public panic that greeted the storm, people didn’t know how to respond.

Compared to what we normally see in other countries, what happened this week in Durban was not that bad, but the death toll could have been much higher if it were not for the sterling work of the private emergency services personnel.

Given our inexperience in dealing with such weather, the government must ensure that the message reaches far and wide.

Let’s work on strengthening our early-warning systems.

We cannot afford to keep dropping the ball when lives are at stake.