Interlude 21: Floodwaters Rising

As has been widely reported, there has been a serious flood in the Province of Buenos Aires in recent days (and thanks to all my friends who got in touch to check I was OK). Luckily the area I live in (in the North of Buenos Aires city) was barely touched. Worst off was the lesser known Capital City of Buenos Aires Province, La Plata:

Now, when I say flood, it really does mean flood - and you can look at this in one of two ways. Firstly, there is obviously nothing the goverment can do about the weather. A colleague of mine asked me this morning what would have happened in london if there was this much rain. The answer inevitably would be almost as much damage as you can see above (I say almost taking into account that whilst we have a very built up city with not much grass to absorb the water, we also have a better sewage system etc). 

The second point of analysis to make is actually the main one, the real talking point inside BA. Why, when storms (given, not usually of this size) are commonplace (I have experienced many a torrential downpour in the last 7 months), were adequate provisions not put in place? The question that has been on my mind is where are the boats? Where are the helicopters? Where is the military help? There were reports of people freezing overnight on rooptops waiting to be saved, and many people are still without electricity.

The reasons behind this can be related to the current squabbling for a scapegoat between the La Plata Provincial government led by Scioli (an opponent of Cristina, the Presidenta) and the National government. In essence, lots of government funds are pilfered by the politicians (which doesn't help), but lots also go on other things like subsidising the SUBTE trains and overly generous unemployment benefits. It is this money which should have gone into contingency and disaster planning.

This is not to say the government don't care, in fact they have declared an official 3 day mourning period for the 51 La Plata deaths (declared so far). I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure what that means, and 99% of people in BA city centre are working as normal, but still it is an action that has been taken. The people, nevertheless, are angry - and with plenty of reason. Just like any government takes the blame when the economy turns sour even if they did not cause it, the people here are venting. There has been limited effort to remove the floodwaters, and the death toll is inevitably set to rise with over 20 'disappearances' reported on top of the 57 province-wide death figures. In recent weeks things have not been going so well for the Argentine government, with a series of bad decisions accompanying some bad luck, but potentially things have just taken another turn for the worst.