Flooding

Rivers

NIMET Predicts Flooding in 18 LGs in Rivers

 Rivers 1Nigeria Hydrological Services and Nigeria Meteorological Agency(NIMET) has warned that 11 Local Governments in Rivers state shall experience severe flooding while seven others shall experience mild flooding.

This disclosure was made by The Zonal Director of the  National Emergency Management Agency(NEMA), Walson Brandon in an interaction with Journalists.

Brandon who also stated that the forecast showed that flooding this year was expected be more than that of last year, listed the areas to be affected to include : Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, (2) Oyigbo, (3) Tai. (4) Abua/Odual. (5) Degema, (6) Akuku-Toru, (7) Port Harcourt City, (8) Obio-Akpor (9) Gokana, (10) Ahoada-West (11) Ahaoda East (12) Andoni (13) Asari-Toru (14) Bonny. (15) Ogu-Bolo (16) Okrika, (17) Opobo-Nkoro, (18) Etche as the local government that will suffer flooding.

He advised the State Government to  put in place emergency management procedures to mitigate the impeding flooding saying,''emergencies are local for example when there’s a plane crash, it happens at a place, so we expect the local residents around that area to assist in basic First Aid and also respond adequately. Since disasters happen at a particular place, we expect the people to take action concerning their environment.''

“Federal Government is a big entity that covers the 36 states and capital, in issues of emergency the first respondent is Local government, by extension the state as second before Federal government, so there’s a need for the state government to have robust state emergency team to mitigate the coming flooding. Our procedures are, if there’s an emergency, we move to the area and assess the situation and then make recommendation to our headquarters for action, pending the response from the Headquarters we assist victims with basic first aid and emergency services. so the state is expected to act first,'' Brandon noted.

In 2015, Ahoada West was submerged and  over 60 families were affected by the flooding.