Our city was under siege on Tuesday morning; not from an invading army, but from a watery enemy that was bent on destroying everything in its path.
A prolonged and sustained rainfall held our beautiful Tamale hostage for a couple of hours. And, finally when our city was let go, destruction was written all over her beautiful body.
Tamale was drenched in torrential rain accompanied by devastating and vicious floods. It was like the floodgates of heaven had been thrown wide open.
The destruction wrought by the rain and floods was frightening, and deeply troubling; lives were reportedly lost, and houses and businesses immersed in knee-deep water.
I watched with agony, sadness and complete dejection, a video courtesy of Timyumtaba Association of New Jersey, of a woman being swept away in her car by raging floods near Gariba Lodge.
Onlookers couldn’t do anything to help the poor woman as the angry and vicious floods tossed her car around like a toy and rapidly pushed her downstream. You could sense the deep anger and roar of the floods.
It was a heart-wrenching sight, one that many people who have seen the video, will have a hard time putting out of their minds.
In the midst of this devastation, one wonders if our local authorities are up to task in finding a lasting solution to the annual floods that seem to have become a way of life in our city.
There is no sense arguing the fact Tuesday’s rain and the floods have once again exposed the vulnerabilities of city residents to natural disasters.
Months ago, I complained in a commentary about the lack of preparedness on the part of city authorities should a natural disaster hit the metropolis.
After previous heavy rains and floods and the destruction that invariably followed, Tamale city authorities took some measures, mainly adding to the existing number of gutters and drains — to contain the problem.
But these were stop-gap measures that woefully failed to adequately address the problem of flooding in the city.
Of course, one does not expect the Tamale metropolis to find a permanent solution to this perennial headache; no city in our global village has been able to find a lasting solution to the thorny problem of floods, not even the rich metropolises with eye-watering annual budgets.
And, certainly this is not the time to point fingers, however, it is important to note that city residents expect their leaders to do something concrete about these floods. They are tired of losing their lives and properties to in the annual disasters.
The mayor, Mr.”Superior” who I believe is still visiting the United States should cancel the visit and return to Tamale as soon as it is practicable; once home, he should come out with a blueprint, an elaborate plan that is, immediately, on how the city is going to fight floods going forward.
Hopefully, he would come back with brand new ideas —- fighting floods included — on how to transform a sleepy city such as ours into a modern, vibrant and all inclusive metropolis.
God knows the northern regions need the rains, but not the accompanying destructive floods that take the lives of our friends, neighbors and family members and invade our homes and businesses.