Here is the continuation of Part 2 of A Crack At Dawn – The Torment Of The Torrent.
He led the way. I followed. The dawn seemed exhausted. Portions of the asphalt road had been sluiced away. We kept clear of the road, walking on the curbs that separated it from the gardens. We came to a halt at the sloping entrance to his home. I tried to go on the garden curb after his gate, but I couldn’t move more than three steps. Taking more would imply getting ready to swim. In front of us was a flood lake. Still breathing. Glistening, but dark. Glistening beneath the streetlights.
Reality dawns
At the start of our lane, which appends the road that connects the lanes before and after ours, was where the runoff from the early morning that rushed through my neighbour’s and my own compound gathered. The road was submerged. The compound and porch of the first house on the left were hermetically flooded. The inhabitants were frantically salvaging stuff. I watched them move a mattress to a dryer area of the house. I was thinking about how much damage this house had sustained. The white car in their yard appeared to be the sole piece of meat sticking out of the soup. With the engine fully buried, I was worried the automobile might turn a lemon.
My end and the residences abutting the T-junction received the most brunt of the flood. I stared in disbelief. Water everywhere. The household across the T-junction was huddled in one of their rooms, staring out the window at the deluge in front of their house. I winced seeing the water level an inch shy of the window.
Video compilation of the floods on 25th May 2024
Few years ago
I was cautious not to trespass the pool’s shallow end. I am not a swimmer. Aside from that, an encounter a few years back at this exact T-junction made me avoid going near the water. It had rained all day, and when I got home, the road was flooded. It was impassable if I wanted to keep my feet dry, so I slinked on the curb, which cordoned the avenue trees from the road. I rested briefly when I got to the exposed ground in front of Vignesh’s house. Holding on to the concrete post of the left gate, I leaped, thinking first, calculating how far it would put me at the other end of the gate without splashing my feet in the water. I poised myself for the jump, firmly clutching the post with the tips of my left fingers.
Something wasn’t right with my rehearsed mental jump. If I landed at the other end of Vignesh’s gate on my feet alone, I would undoubtedly lose my balance and fall on my side. There wasn’t enough dry ground to make a comfortable landing. So, when I leaped, I made sure to press my fingers on the flat top of the concrete gatepost, where the gate lamp sat. I regretted it right away. A jolt of electricity zapped through my fingertips. For a little moment, it was both horribly delicious and terrifying. I pulled my hand quickly. That could have been my final day on Earth.
Powerful floods
This morning, I was not going to stir my curiosity with the vastness that lay before me. My youngest sister joined us on the frontier of the gathered floodwaters. ‘What’s happening to the car? The lights are blinking.’ My sister pointed at a white car that was parked on the right arm of the T-junction. The horns blared with the blinking.
‘The trunk is open,’ my sister continued to examine the vehicle. ‘Yes, the water did that,’ my peer chipped in. ‘The electrical system has been affected. That’s how powerful water is. It forced the trunk open.’ He proceeded as if he could read my mind. ‘The battery will be depleted if it continues like this.’
No flood limit
We turned around. He was raring to show me the spectacle that the flood wrought on his automobile. Probably sensing my disbelief. He traced his fingers in the air, paralleling the water stain that spanned from the driver’s door to the end of the passenger door behind. The mark was about 4 inches above the sill of the door.
I had a tough time believing what I was seeing. The young man spoke, but I wasn’t paying attention. A pucker formed over my brows and mouth. How did the floodwaters manage to move up a slope? Perhaps the slope was an illusion. The home wasn’t that high. Our lane was a gentle slope. The reason why the floodwaters were trapped at the junction.
‘Come, I’ll show you my car.’ I turned around and entered his compound. When he opened the doors, the mats beneath the seats were wet.
Unsafe dawn
After gabbing some more about the floods, I returned home wishing I had enjoyed a full night’s sleep. I dropped my tense body onto the bed. I attempted to distract myself from the tragedy by surfing social media. I couldn’t prescind from the new security breach created by the new gap in the wall. The real deal would be after the floods recede and the land is dry again. Rebuilding the wall. An unwanted cost! Hah!
One word to describe how I felt that dawn—naked. My house undoubtedly felt the same. We were uncovered. Outsiders would be staring at us with pity. Housebreakers would relish the opportunity to burgle. They would not have to climb a wall and fight razor wires out of the way. They could simply walk over the fallen wall where the floodwaters had surged through.
Time to explore
Time whizzed by. It was time to explore. With my phone and mirrorless camera, I stepped out with fresh zest to continue my exploration of the estate. The sky no longer appeared hostile. When I reached my junction, there was no lake. Only mud and trash. The water had subsided. The bitumen road was frayed. Mud and garbage were everywhere.
The only passable route would be on the garden curbs if you cared about not getting your legs grubby. I stared at the mired street, trying not to get hypnotised with its sleekness. I stepped carefully on the curb, as if I were on a tightrope. Any imbalance would leave me smeared with mud.
I stepped off the curb and into the main road that connects all the lanes in the estate.
It was strewn with garbage, mostly polythene bags—blue, black, white, green.
Unlucky vehicles
There it was – the vehicle I heard was swept from its parking spot across the junction.
It was now oriented in the direction of the entrance into the estate. Did the floods do that? Turning the KIA SUV 180 degrees and moving it across a distance, whichever came first.
The grille of a box truck parked opposite the central transformer station was covered with polythene bags, grass, and debris.
I headed straight up the road, flanked by a box truck on the right and the central transformer station on the left. A familiar sight of crumbling walls and strewn stones greeted me as I approached the home after the transformer station. The entire wall that separated the home from the road had fallen, spilling its blocks onto the lawn. The walls of the house had a reputation for collapsing whenever the estate experienced a devastating flood.
More damage ahead
The floods were ruthless. The centre of the estate, which I had expected to be a safe haven from the floods, was not spared. This was verified by the water stains on the painted walls of houses. Some residents, like me, were strolling the streets, fulfilling our curiosity. After exchanging pleasantries and discussing our experiences, I turned left at the bridge, anxious to see the fallen culvert I had learnt about in my just-ended gossip.
I bypassed the home with the shattered wall and glanced over the other houses on the lane. At the bridge, I took a left by the parterre and came to a stop at the first home on the opposite side. It had been years since the homeowners had moved overseas. They would not be pleased with what I witnessed in their compound. Their compound was entirely submerged in the flood. It stopped short a few inches below the window sill, and I could not imagine the devastation inside. A spectre to behold. Yikes. The mattresses, furnishings, and electrical gadgets would not be saved. The building was like a stump in a lake, fighting to stay above the water.
The fallen culvert
I no longer felt like an only victim. The sky above me was saturated with rain clouds. It looked like the unfolding of a solar eclipse, when darkness suddenly engulfed light. It was time I inspected the fallen culvert, so I headed straight towards it.
Rosario yelled out, “Yo! This is insane,” as I neared the scene. “This is the worst flooding to hit the estate. Yes, we have torrential rains and occasional flooding, but nothing like this. Come see.” We were already across the street, on the opposite side of his house.
“Our walls are down.” I told Rosario summarily as I became sidetracked. My mouth opened as wide as the exposed drainage before me. The entire section of the culvert on the left side of the house opposite Rosario’s had collapsed and sloped into the drain. ‘If a car was parked there…’ escaped my lips. Oh! It all makes sense now why metal bars cordoned off the perimeter of the culverts running in front of houses. It was not for decoration. The estate developers couldn’t possibly have missed such a wide watercourse.
What! Another wall?
Oh, my days! I responded to Rosario all the while keeping my gaze fixed on the large pit. I tried hard to imagine how fierce the floods had been, but I couldn’t figure out how the culvert caved in. It remained a monolith, unlike the fractured walls at my end.
The wind whooshed harder. The air grew thicker, smothering any lingering visibility. Telltale signs of imminent severe downpour. The temperature fell rapidly, whipping my face and arms. My inchoative exploration was threatened. The early dawn resembled the night.
‘The walls over there are down too,’ Rosario pointed towards a house on the lane subtending a perimeter of the estate.
A pall of darkness
My body wanted to turn back home, but my curiosity lured me in the direction Rosario indicated.
We exited right off Rosario’s lane unto the next lane and kept on the tangent to the house.
I stared into the far end of the compound, in search of the wall. At first, I couldn’t make it out. Rosaria pointed again. I focused again. Silly me! If the wall came down, I was supposed to look down. The sight of the bridge outside the estate and the plants bordering the massive drainage coming into the estate, helped to piece it all together. I should not be able to look outside the estate. The wall had definitely come down.
If this were a movie, the title would have been Wall-Breaking Heist. The water destroyed every wall in its path. A young girl mentioned earlier that more walls were down in the estate’s eastward zone.
The pall of darkness suffused further and closer. It would not be a good idea to be far from home when the heavens opened up and it began to dump its water. The thought of being swept away by floods terrified me. I need to get home as soon as possible. There will be more time to explore later on. I walked briskly, staring at the now-black sky and not feeling my legs for a minute.
How did the walls break?
I arrived at a specked house. My sisters did an excellent job washing the floor. Normalcy was restored. The walls, no. My father had a strong hypothesis about how the wall gave way under the floodwaters. He would repeat this to anybody, like a tour guide narrating how a scene unfolded. I think I bought his story because it demystified the question of how the floods could overpower the bushes and even the mounds.
Some months ago, the Electricity Company of Ghana undertook maintenance on their transformer station in the neighbourhood, directly behind our wall. They built an enclosed revetment around the transformer. Obviously, to safeguard it. From intruders. From accidents. Now, in hindsight—from disasters like the flood. Indeed, the concrete revetment helped to keep the transformer station dry. They cleared the vegetation around the transformer to allow ample space for construction and entry into the station.
When the road and gutters overflowed, the floodwaters capitalised on the clearance around the newly built revetment and lammed the wall.
The accomplice
This is where my speculation about the accomplice comes in. The wall should have been able to hold up. Maybe better if not for the crack in the pillar behind the lime tree, since the wall broke away right up to it. A tinge of guilt always washes over me about this fact. I spotted the fissure a long time ago but dismissed it.
I’m not sure how the wall on my neighbour’s side collapsed. Maybe as ours crashed, it sent shock waves to its ends. I must have heard something thud to the ground right before Mom’s voice went up. Upon inspecting the fallen wall, my dad was peeved that the wall contained no iron rods. Not even in the pillars. The fallen walls were a reflection of the shoddy work done by the estate developers.
The reconstruction
The key question is, when will the walls be rebuilt? The longer it takes, the greater our exposure to the public and the weaker our safety. It’s unnerving, and I get apprehensive every time I see the collapsed walls. Anyone can just stroll into the estate. Given that the rebuilding doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon, I wager that there will be instances of trespassing and burglary in the estate. The estate management announced that each homeowner will be taxed for the reconstruction of the wall and drainage infrastructure.
Before the year ends, hopefully, this reconstruction will be completed. Until then, I will sleep with both eyes and ears open.
What’s next in Peter’s Box? ¡Hasta luego amigos!