Reporting the start of the official inquiry into the Jeddah floods, Sebastian Usher of the BBC says: “Some in Saudi Arabia have described what is happening with the public mood as a turning point – with Saudis for once forcing the authorities to take responsibility for their mistakes.”

It is not only about floods or the scale of the disaster (which probably killed several times the officially-declared number, currently 150). It is also about those who govern Saudi Arabia and the way they govern it.

“People died in this tragedy because of negligence, mismanagement and corruption,” Maha Akeel writes in Arab News:

The rain began in the early morning and lasted for six hours. During that time, why were the roads that were becoming submerged not blocked from access and traffic diverted? Why were the residents of those districts in the valleys not warned to stay indoors and to move up from ground floors? Why were they not evacuated as soon as the rain began flooding their homes? No one came to their rescue until hours after the rain had stopped. Why were there no precautionary measures before, during and after the rain?

The floods are also a story of bureaucracy and obstruction by officialdom in areas where it shouldn’t matter and, equally, a lack of regulation in areas where it should matter.

Rescue officers refused to assist stranded women without their mahram (male guardian) … volunteers also complained about being questioned why men and women were in the same car.

One man, trying to rent a temporary apartment for his family, found he could not do so without the required paper from the Civil Defence. “This was necessary because apartment buildings refused to accommodate families without the paper,” Arab News says. “A neighbour left his family in their flooded home to get the paper only to find on his return that they had all been electrocuted.” 

According to the authorities, 5,029 properties were damaged by the floods, along with 4,664 cars. The cars were scooped up and taken to 15 separate compounds, leaving their owners to hunt for them. The registration numbers were apparently not recorded and one man told the Saudi Gazette he spent the entire Eid holiday looking for his car, without success. Another man trying to reclaim his vehicle said: “I was asked to bring the ownership documents and a photo of the car. They made things very difficult for me because all the documents were in the car.” Those fortunate enough to get an official release permit are then asked to pay 500 riyals for towing costs.

Meanwhile, householders are getting contradictory instructions regarding damage to their property. Ahmad al-Juhani told Arab News …

... a Civil Defence official arrived at his house to inspect the damage, claiming he did not bother to get out of his car. Al-Juhani added the official simply told him to specify what was damaged in the property and to start cleaning up. When he went to the financial ministry representative, he was instructed not to touch anything until a special committee evaluates the damage.

Besides these immediate concerns, there are two long-term questions that reflect on the Saudi authorities’ general approach to running things: why does Jeddah still not have an effective drainage/sewage system, and why has there been so much unregulated construction in areas prone to flooding?

One controversy relates to “Misk Lake”, a pond covering more than 2 sq km where the city’s sewage is dumped. It is widely regarded as a health hazard (mosquitoes, dengue fever, etc) and during last week’s rain there were fears that an earth dam would burst, engulfing the city in sewage. The Bin Laden company has now been hastily called in and is constructing an additional barrier which should be finished in a week.

It is not as if the sewage problems are new; people have complained about them for years. The Crossroads Arabia blogcomments:

”Misk Lake” has every appearance of being a “temporary” solution to the sewage problems that confront Jeddah, but one that was allowed to become more or less permanent … Jeddah, it seems, needs a major, expensive, tedious, and disruptive retrofit of a modern sewage and drainage system. The corners cut when the Saudi economy was bad, the “commissions” skimmed off of budgets, the looking the other way when it came to friends’ behaviour are all now showing their weaknesses.

Much of last week’s destruction was in unplanned districts that have been established over many years in normally-dry river beds. How these were allowed to develop is one question the inquiry ought to answer.

Nazih Nasief, who was mayor of Jeddah from 1997 to 2000, 
told the Saudi Gazette he never approved any himself but added: “My relationships with a lot of people were affected as I was trying to stop them from establishing new unplanned districts.”

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 5 December 2009.