Govt innocent from Friday rain crisis
The recent catastrophic rainfall that flooded several roads, blocked others and trapped citizens in fear inside their vehicles for hours, is the result of a natural weather disaster the government cannot be blamed for because it happens in various countries worldwide. This is true, and I remember that it was used by governmental sources when previous similar disasters with the same magnitude took place. “Floods even happen in London and hurricanes strike the United States, yet nobody there blames the government for them,” the sources said then.
I personally tend to believe and emphasize that no matter how powerful the government is and how much capable of controlling an entire nation’s will through controlling the parliament it can be, it still remains incapable of controlling the weather. This is an undeniable fact. We cannot blame the government for what happened last Friday and, according to social media images and videos, we temporarily turned into an afflicted country.
Yes it is not the government’s fault. Is that not what you want us to say? Yes, the downpour was larger than rain drainage networks’ capacity. Is this not the excuse your officials are expected to use in statements to justify their absolute failure in facing a rain shower that only lasted 45 minutes? Well, I will go along with that.
Yet the real inexcusable problem here is that no state department has the slightest idea about managing a crisis of this caliber. None of the security, medical, electricity emergency departments, Kuwait Municipality or Ministry of Public Works has an emergency or crisis management team. That is why they all improvised on dealing with last Friday’s crisis. This is a fact the Friday 45-minute rain exposed. Yes, gentlemen, you did not have any emergency plans or a crisis management team, and that is why the damage was great and could have been greater. People were affected, houses were flooded and traffic was jammed because of a slight unpredicted weather change.
Nonetheless, the government should have emergency plans and all government bodies responsible for it should be held accountable. What does it mean to react after the disaster takes place without even having a plan in the first place? What if the rain lasted longer, say for two, three or six hours? I am sure more serious disasters would have happened and people would have died. I dare the government’s official spokesperson to claim that they have even half a plan, which they do not.
—Translated by Kuwait Times