Is it over?

The rain last night started shortly after 7:00 PM and stopped sometime after 3:00 AM, almost exactly matching the script of the previous two nights. The important difference is that last night’s rain was soft and gentle, the kind of rain that farmers and gardeners love.

The water has gone down about eight inches over night. It is below curb level which means that residents who still have standing water in their houses can finally remove it. Debris that had been floating for several days lies scattered on sidewalks, giving the area the appearance of an abandoned slum. Residents will deal with that quickly.

What still remains, beside the water, is something that I forgot to mention in previous posts…the problems with and odor caused by backed-up sewage pipes. I am very much aware of the odor as I type this…there is no escaping it. I don’t know what has to happen to eliminate it.

Whether the flood is over or not, this seems like the time to reflect on action taken by city authorities. Chiclayo is a large city and we know that there were areas of it that got hit harder than we did. We know that buildings collapsed and there was at least one death. It may be that the president’s visit accomplished something, and that the city responded as best they could in those areas. That didn’t happen in our neighborhood.

The help we received was six men and a pump. They disappeared after 10:00 PM last night, having accomplished nothing. I don’t know what if anything could have been done about the water, but the police could have at least closed the roads so waves from vehicles didn’t enter houses. Instead residents had to confront drivers with brooms and clubs. I’m sure that sandbags could have been provided, which could have prevented water from entering some (not all) of the houses. If nothing else, government presence would have shown residents that they weren’t alone.

Maybe it’s over, though dark clouds are present to the southwest. This isn’t the first flood this neighborhood has seen and it won’t be the last. Hopefully, as Peru slowly emerges from its third-world status there will be infrastructure in place to better respond to disasters like this.

PS…as I was about to publish this post a truck with military personnel has parked just outside our door. The men are looking over the area, for what purpose I don’t know. Maybe the cavalry has arrived.