By Josephine Sesay

As the rainy season intensifies across Sierra Leone, the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has issued a critical and urgent warning: parents and guardians must keep children indoors during heavy rainfall and ensure they stay away from open drains, culverts, and floodwaters. This is not just a precaution it’s a matter of life and death.

Let’s face the truth: this warning should not come as a surprise. Sierra Leone’s annual vulnerability to flooding is well known. Each year, harrowing images emerge homes underwater, families displaced, and most heartbreakingly, children lost to preventable tragedies. What’s deeply troubling is that, despite this recurring reality, many of these incidents could have been avoided.

The NDMA’s message is a brutal reminder of two critical failings, first, our infrastructure remains dangerously inadequate. Open drains, blocked culverts, and poorly managed waterways are death traps hiding in plain sight. Second, there is a serious gap in public education and preparedness, particularly when it comes to protecting children during environmental emergencies.

But pointing fingers at government alone misses the full picture. This is a shared responsibility. Parents and caregivers must take action even in the face of economic hardship, overcrowded housing, and limited choices. No chore, no errand, no moment of play is worth the risk of a child being swept away by floodwaters. Keep them indoors. Explain the dangers. Stay alert.

Still, the government must do more than sound the alarm. The NDMA’s advisory is welcome, but what about enforcement? Where are the community-based outreach programs, neighborhood emergency shelters, early warning systems, and investment in safer urban infrastructure? Warnings without follow-through leave families stranded in vulnerability.

The rainy season won’t wait for policy reviews or budget approvals. It’s already here. And for thousands of children living in urban slums and flood-prone communities, every downpour is a life-threatening event, the urgency is real, and our response must match it.

Let this warning from the NDMA not fade into the background of the evening news. Let it spark a national conversation and, more importantly, coordinated action. If we truly value our children the most vulnerable among us then we must act like it. Because preparation, not regret, should be our legacy.

Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Monday,28th July, 2025 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)