Extended Street Festival Puts More Lives At Risk

We don't seem to have learned enough lessons from the 30/3 tragedy when 11 people lost their lives in 2013 after 15 centimetres of rain fell on Port-Louis. We still have time to wisen up and move the Porlwi by Nature festival elsewhere. So as not to look stupid after the event. More bad things can happen over five days than over three.

• It's a wonderful idea to organise a street festival. There's not a lot that happens after 18h00 in Mauritius so the organisers definitely need to be congratulated.
• Thing is we've seen what happened on 30/3 (March 30, 2013) when 15 centimetres of rain killed 11 citizens (10 in Port-Louis) during the day -- see clip below from Antenne Reunion (https://youtu.be/ppVz408B-ps) and a report by Euronews (https://youtu.be/h62tjRYI0jo). It's appropriate at this time to remember that the two o'clock rule teaches us how things become a lot less manageable after sunset and that there's a given amount of time to retreat to safety.

• 30/3 happened 40-odd days after 13/2 when we saw PPS Bholah get stuck in her car and water was rising dangerously. That was also 5 years after the deadly floods of 2008 (the year of the bumper crop) and the Domah report. The hansard mentions that the staff at the Met office claimed that the weather radar that was out of service for several years had not been replaced because it was too costly. So we can't buy a piece of equipment that cost Rs300m-Rs400m to save lives but a bean-counter grants Rs5 billion to a dead industry?
• Some politicians said 30/3 was a flash flood. But not everybody agrees. I heard Sok Appadu our famous Met guy saying there's been heavier rainfall before but that didn't have such devastating effects. Looks more like haphazard construction over several years that have prevented water from making a safe use of gravity and that have narrowed the drains. 
• It wasn't the first time water was accumulating in the parking of a building where two died. Or in the infamous underpass.
• 11 people died in the bus accident at Soreze. That happened after the Montebello accident. 4 years after. We don't seem to be able to pick up patterns and take corrective measures in time.
• There have been articles in the press years before Montebello where many operational defects of several buses were listed.
• There is too much ambient stupidity. A week after 13/2 attention was drawn to the dangerous stupidity in the Integrated Electiricity Plan of the CEB: "as implausible as it may appear, nuclear technology is a generation option". That's two years after Fukushima. And we currently have a minister who wants to sell the CWA because he doesn't like its hotline.
• Top tax rates have been reduced to levels that screw up the economy for the benefit of the 1% and to build a facade of a low-tax jurisdiction. After it had failed elsewhere. But then equipment like a weather radar which is essential for our well-being is suddenly deemed too costly.
• Morons want to screw up our excellent electoral system and constitution. 
• How many times did water accumulate dangerously after 30/3? Here's one time when Mauritius had to shut down because of rain. That was in early 2016. Almost three years after 30/3. So the risk is still there.
• Last year Day 2 of Porlwi by Light was cancelled because heavy rain was expected. Water was rising in some places and some people reported a start of panic. I went to check how much rain had fallen. A mere 21mm. Or 2.1cm. Here's a video on that night from L'express (https://youtu.be/GqYyrrBFBfo). The crowds were very large and compact. Which makes the risk even bigger.

• To a much lesser degree just think about all the effort behind organising such a festival. Last year a third of it went to waste because of 21mm of rain. It's not uncommon to get rain for three or four consecutive days.
• We need to know what would have happened if Day 2 had not been cancelled. Would people have died or been injured? How many? What about if we had 5cm of rain instead? And what would have been the outcome if 10cm, 15cm or 20cm had fallen on Port-Louis?
• People might say forecasting the weather is an imprecise science. Exactly. Which makes the case to move the festival to another city where we know no matter how much rain falls it's very unlikely that there will be a loss of lives anywhere near to what may happen in Port-Louis. Your thinking has to be a lot better when there's so many people involved. The security of a huge crowd with people of all ages cannot depend on the accuracy of one weather forecast. All might go well this year. Or it might not. What we know is that the area is still prone to a carnage. We definitely don't want to be taking this kind of risk.
• Xmas is in a few weeks and Mauritius @50 in about a 100 days. Let's play it safe!