Recent flooding in Nairobi, a local perspective.
Recent extensive flooding in Nairobi, Kenya, has claimed many lives and destroyed homes causing considerable fear and distress among the community.
I have a friend in Nairobi, a local Kenyan woman and her name is Immaculate, she was sending me text descriptions of the close-by floods on WhatsApp late last week, and I thought them worth sharing.
Imma speaks Swahili and English is her second language. Her words give an impactful firsthand description of many people’s terrifying and powerless position and are another example of the serious nature of our changing climate.
This is not an appeal for money, although the need is great in East Africa, rather it is a reminder of our changing climate and its effect on those least able to adapt.
First a brief description of Nairobi’s climate.
Nairobi has a tropical climate with two wet seasons, the long rains from March to May and the short rains from October to December. These two seasons are linked to the north and south movement of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone ITCZ, a zone of thunderstorms where trade winds meet.
The weather is also influenced by the Indian Ocean Dipole IOD and is in a positive mode blowing warm water near to the East African coastline, resulting in warming of the air, more evaporation and water holding capacity, leading to heavy rains over Kenya and Tanzania.
Further to the long rains season and the IOD and adding to the rainfall is human induced climate change with air and sea water temperatures rising, increasing water vapour resulting in more rain.
Nairobi has been built on a floodplain like many cities around the world. The flooding is also a result of the inability to build sufficient urban growth infrastructure, particularly storm water drainage and sewerage treatment and transport systems. Together with a lack of green spaces to allow infiltration of water into the soil, and population pressures resulting in building homes on those green spaces.
The following is Imma’s personal account of the flooding and illustrates the urgent need for provision of adaptations to climate change.
Imma’s WhatsApp messages are quoted here:
Tuesday 23rd April 2024
It’s raining heavy here with flood’s evrwhr killing ppl lyk tdays rain which was very heavy….
It started raining b4 I got in the hse n was very heavy with thunder storms n lightening n evn now stil raining…
Is it raining there…u can hear people from CNN news how ppl r complaining here…
Tday it was worse…. very very heavy….
Keep yourself warm if its raining there…av a blessed day…
….it has rained here heavy since yest’ tday mrng….
Floods evrywhr ,ppl dying….it’s terrible…
Wednesday morning 24th April
It has rained the whole nite n it’s stil raining…I don’t understand this rain weuh
Thursday 25th April
It’s raining heavy here many places flooding…ppl dying…near where we live is a sewage river….it has over flown till gone above the bridge,evn houses near av been swept away….one hse perimeter wall has been swept way….
On the other side a hse has been swept aftr our house our neigbor but own house…many houses r full of water…
May God have mercy on us…but we r save ..
They av announced in News at 7pm stil heavy rain expected everywhere in the country….
It’s increasing again….it’s terrible…
Ppl r dying…swept it by rain…houses….frm Tues it’s raining heavy….
Our landlady’s house,roof was cut off by rain by they av just repaired it this nite…
Friday 26th April
Yes it stopped around 5am … the water entered in the hse but was not much so I was cleaning it ..
With all the dangerous flooding around her, Imma was still concerned with having her daughter’s new schoolbooks and shoes ready for school term 2 on Monday morning. As it turns out the government closed schools for a week at first.
Saturday 4th May
….the president has announced tat there wil b tornado it’s very near…. Mombasa Wil be the most affected place by it….
They av announced it Wil start by sun….tgthr with heavy rains but no rain tday…
Sunday 5th May
…the prblm here is transformer 4 power I think tmrw they wil kam 2 repair it…stil no power around my area all of it…
Gumboots are quite expensive but I think they r taking advantage cz of rain..it’s 700/- to 1500/- depending with the best n long lasting make…
We decided not to buy 1 st cz our President said no sch until further notice cz of heavy rain n many sch’s destroyed by rain, bridges damaged n no roads…
He did urge everybody to stay safe n avoid walking in heavy rain….lyk now it’s stil raining here but last nite it’s was very little n rained for a short period of tym…on Fri it rained frm 4:30 pm to the following day sat upto around 8.30…it was heavy…
Clothes r not evn drying….tday during the day was at least better bt frm 7pm… It has started raining heavy…
May God av mercy on us….
