Hurricane Ibadan Brings Massive Destruction In First Major Rain, Friday
The Oasis Reporters
February 05, 2017
If you called 199 Police number , Ibadan at night on Friday last week (March 3), chances are that Iwo Road Police Station wouldn’t have responded to your distress.. . They too had an emergency battling the hurricane that chose it’s Testing Ground station as a place to start. In the end, all Police shops were destroyed with entire roofs flying like saucers in the air.
Not only were the shops destroyed, all other shops along Iwo road up till Iyana Church and beyond were affected one way or the other.
Worse still were living houses of many Ibadan Residents all over the city. Some entire roofs flew for 500 metres before resting on other buildings, destroying them as well.
The famous Mary Hill Convent School, arguably one of the earliest private schools in Ibadan had it’s fanciful fence destroyed.
That was not all, because major electric poles and wires crashed to the ground in the first hurricane that has afflicted Ibadan in more than 40 years, Ibadan would have to do without electric power for at least one month as the repairs are expected to be massive.
Injuries were recorded as innocent bystanders suddenly found corrugated iron sheets on their heads, including children playing in the rain.
An outskirt of Ibadan called Apata NNPC that is near Abeokuta was however spared. The area saw no rain.
The massive rainfall which started on Friday, March 3rd at about 5.00pm lasted till 7. 30 pm, and traffic navigation was near impossible with electric poles straddling most major roads making movement well nigh impossible in the dark.
There were thunderstorms, fierce lightning and what can pass as African snow, throwing rain pellets from the sky on rooftops and on the ground.
Painfully this is occurring in Ibadan, a city where citizens provide everything they need, from Water through pre colonial Wells or boreholes for the affluent. Their governments are for decoration as they pay scant attention to infrastructure. Unlike a State like Kano that would provide Transformers for electricity and water for all.
However, farmers saw a silver lining in the rain of destruction as this could signify the early beginnings before the planting season is heralded.
