Natural disaster: an as-told-to story

I was stuck! People had to kayak within the city.

By Tracy Thomas, as told to Minah Tau

Tracy grew up on Lagos Island in Nigeria with a family that loves to travel. Having been to England as a teenager, she proclaims her inherited love for travel. She also shares her prospective plans to visit Paris and South Korea. She also looks ahead to attending her friend’s wedding in India later this year.

As a kid, a couple of floods here and there was not a major issue. I loved playing outside when it rained. But, in 2017, there was a big flood that hit the island and the mainland very hard.

A main disadvantage of an island is that it is right beside the ocean. The ocean would overflow into the island. Houses were deep under water and cars with people in them were getting washed away. I was stuck in the house but at least I had nowhere to be at that time. The men offered to carry women around and onto the dry land. Instead of driving their cars, people were kayaking to get around the city.

My house was not flooded but there were houses that were deeply submerged into the water. I was staying home but I could see that people were struggling out there and their houses were flooding. The unfortunate people who lived next to the beach had their house swept away. I wondered where they must go now.

Most people died because my country was not responsible about shutting down the electricity. The electrical cables mixed up with the flood water. Many people lost their lives. Nigeria also has bad infrastructure and drainage system. My neighborhood had one drain that randomly stopped working one day and water was just getting anywhere. That was also something common back home. People did not take care of their bills. The city is not laid out properly. I remember the cloudiness of the sky because of how often it looked like that every time it rained.

There was a very foul smell. It must have come from the ocean. There is a lot of pollution in there. The water would wash out the debris and dirt from under the ocean. It would be floating all over the island. That itself, was a major hazard because you don’t know what you are stepping on. The city was very quiet despite that it is a usually very loud place. I remember reading an article when I was young. The article described Lagos as the “buzzing” city because it is always noisy. Noise pollution is huge there because there is a lot of people. There are about 30 million people in that city alone and yet it was very quiet around that time.

I hope this does not keep happening because a lot of people will die. I wondered what the government will do if it snows there because northern Nigeria experiences a lot of hails. Our government is not thinking about our future and that is dangerous, so I fear for Nigerians.

Being here in Canada does not ease my worries. Instead, it makes it worse. I am very concerned for my loved ones back home. Dead people do not feel the pain. If I was in Nigeria and I died, I wouldn’t feel pain. I would be the one in pain if I was told that something horrible happened to my loved ones.

Good governance is a huge step moving ahead dealing with the aftereffects of climate change. Having conversations about climate change would help in contributing to the efforts being done globally.

First published on my earlier portfolio site on April 4, 2023. Written as a class project during my communication studies.