Tweeting the flood's woes away

"The weatherman’s predictions were right!" It is the only phrase that could escape the tightly hand-covered mouths of many Nairobi dwellers on the floods that left most parts of the Kenya’s metropolitan city turned into pools and roads into impassable rivers in the wake of Thursday 16^th march 2018.

  

The Thursday morning floods that coursed a major collapse of order left many without option but to swim their way into the city. 

Kipande road, Limuru road, Kenyatta Avenue, Broakside drive, Mombasa road near Nairobi River, Mombasa road and Racecourse road near Nairobi River Ngong road, Globe round about, Uhuru Highway and even sections of Thika Road are some of the roads that were robed off their glory by the floods. 

The floods served as a reminder to many that the drainage system that had been overlooked by many leaders was a paramount matter to take into consideration. 

Kenyans as usual took it to twitter under the hashtag #NairobiRains and #KenyaRains to butcher leaders who take planning so lightly. Some blamed Nairobians for voting Mike Mbuvi Sonko as the city governor terming him as a thug while ignoring leaders like Miguna Miguna who had the interest of the city in his heart, read a tweet.

This prompted Sonko to shift the blames to his predecessor, Evans Kidero for misusing Sh 10 billion set aside for unclogging and repairing the drainage.

Another Kenyan On Twitter tweeted that our lives cannot be perennially oscillating from one extremity of nature to the next, prodding the government of the day to put more emphasis on better emergency and disaster response preparedness in curbing such vagaries of nature.   

  

While some were busy blaming Mike Sonko for his inability to act to save the city from drawing, some were brave enough to remind Kenyans that they are also guilty for poor drainage since inappropriately disposed waste and plastic bottles blocked most drainage trenches.

  

plastic bottles and bags clogging drainage system

The innovative batch was not left behind. One champ decided to launch his inflatable dinghy boat on Moi Venue, seemingly to get a catch from the pockets of stranded Kenyans rushing to their places of work. 

 

  

And of course as usual, KOT will have that uniting factor even amidst storms of life, the fun part of everything. This bit, if my wording serves me well, is the part that keep Kenyans reminded that ‘things are not so serious anyway’. It appears to be a dynamic that washes away the pain and agony diluting the tension and replacing it with a happy ambience. Twitter went ablaze with such tweets and memes that seemed to be swimming upstream, or against the tides as a sailor would say. Here are some of them; 

Irony is being swept away by the Nairobi floods while driving a Noah

A Nairobian tweeting about #NairobiFloods

And the funniest bit of it all, Water visits the Kenya Water Institute

 aluta continua

  

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