Weeks of relentless rain have turned large parts of Port Harcourt into a flood zone. Homes, schools, churches, businesses and even a wedding have all been swallowed by rising water. Beyond the dramatic videos, real lives and livelihoods are on pause. Residents say this is the price of years of poor planning finally catching up with the city; now it’s a city underwater.
Since September, heavy and persistent rainfall has repeatedly overwhelmed Port Harcourt’s drainage system, leaving floodwater in neighbourhoods across the city like Eneka, Eliozu, Elimgbu, Odili Road, SARS Road, Rupokwu, Rukpokwu, New GRA, Borikiri, Diobu, Trans-Amadi, Aba Expressway, Ozuoba and more. In some of the worst hit areas, residents have had to move around their own streets by canoe, with floodwater reported well above waist level.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has described the situation in Rivers State as serious, placing the state alongside hundreds of flood affected communities nationwide and naming Port Harcourt as the worst hit location in the South-South region. A teenager reportedly died in Oyigbo as a result of the flooding. At the moment, homes and belongings are lost.
The damage is extremely personal to some of the families in flood-prone areas. Residents describe the flood entering their homes and destroying mattresses, kitchen utensils, chairs, tables and everyday items that are expensive and hard to replace. Vehicles have been submerged, electric poles knocked down and heaps of refuse and sewage now float through the same water that residents must wade through, raising fears of disease outbreaks also.
Many households had to relocate at least temporarily, from the worst affected streets. An upheaval that have added cost and disruption on top of their properties that are damage already, which is hard to absorb.
School systems in this locations, have taken a direct hit. At Rumuakoara Community Secondary School in Nkpolu, rising water has forced teachers and students out of their building entirely: and several schools around Rumusita and Eneka faced similar disruption. In Rumuigbo, the Rivers State Government had to order the relocation of students and staff of Community Secondary School Rumuapara, to a nearby primary school after their own premises flooded.
The disruption isn’t limited to public schools alone. Residents report that both private and public schools at primary and secondary level have had classes paused, because pupils simply cannot get to or safely stay in their classrooms. Some children reportedly have not attended school in days, because the flood has disrupted road journey.
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