Some warn­ings car­ry mem­o­ries. A recent dis­cus­sion about anoth­er pow­er­ful El Niño has tak­en me back to 1997 and 1998. I wit­nessed that sea­son first­hand. Relent­less rain made roads impass­able, dam­aged infra­struc­ture, iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, destroyed crops, and dis­rupt­ed liveli­hoods. What looked like abun­dant water quick­ly became a trans­port, food, health, and eco­nom­ic crisis.

Near­ly three decades lat­er, what trou­bles me is not only the fore­cast but also the dan­ger­ous casu­al­ness with which we appear to be receiv­ing it.

On July 31, the World Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Orga­ni­za­tion warned that a strong El Niño was inten­si­fy­ing, with wet­ter-than-nor­mal con­di­tions expect­ed across the Greater Horn of Africa. A pos­i­tive Indi­an Ocean Dipole may also devel­op, ampli­fy­ing region­al effects.

Sci­en­tists cau­tion that each El Niño is dif­fer­ent and that fore­casts indi­cate like­li­hood, not cer­tain­ty. “Super El Niño” is not an offi­cial sci­en­tif­ic cat­e­go­ry. Accord­ing­ly, Kenya must fol­low the lat­est fore­casts from the Kenya Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Department.

For sure, uncer­tain­ty is not an excuse for inac­tion but a rea­son to prepare.

Three days lat­er, on August 3, Ethiopia mourned 14 peo­ple killed in a rain-trig­gered land­slide at the Tsadqane Debre Mit­maq St Mary Monastery. Of course, that tragedy can­not be direct­ly attrib­uted to the devel­op­ing El Niño, but it reminds our region of what heavy rain­fall can do when it meets vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties and weak sys­tems. The Unit­ed Nations says that just 24 hours of effec­tive warn­ing can reduce dis­as­ter dam­age by about 30 percent.

Kenya has already paid an unbear­able price, as gov­ern­ment esti­mates place the loss­es and dam­age from the 1997–98 El Niño between US$800 mil­lion and US$1.2 bil­lion. The 2024 floods report­ed­ly killed about 315 peo­ple, affect­ed rough­ly 410,000, and caused dam­age esti­mat­ed at KSh187 bil­lion. In March of this year, floods killed more than 100 Kenyans. Need I say more?

These are not just weath­er sta­tis­tics. Each num­ber rep­re­sents a fam­i­ly whose life is split into before and after the rains. Chil­dren are forced to leave school, farm­ers lose an entire season’s har­vest, traders lose their liveli­hoods, and homes built over many years are destroyed in moments.

Kenya’s great­est cli­mate dan­ger may not be El Niño but our capac­i­ty to for­get. We remem­ber dis­as­ters emo­tion­al­ly, yet for­get them insti­tu­tion­al­ly. What a shame.

This pro­ject­ed sea­son will test the Nation­al Dis­as­ter Risk Man­age­ment Act and the Dis­as­ter Risk Financ­ing Strat­e­gy launched this year. Kenya now has a legal and finan­cial frame­work. What remains is vis­i­ble implementation.

I believe the nation­al gov­ern­ment and every coun­ty should urgent­ly pub­lish infor­ma­tion on iden­ti­fied flood­plains, unsta­ble slopes, vul­ner­a­ble set­tle­ments, and crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, includ­ing dams, bridges, schools, and hos­pi­tals. For each risk, Kenyans should know the pre­ven­tive mea­sures, allo­cat­ed funds, respon­si­ble offi­cer, dead­line, evac­u­a­tion arrange­ments, and pub­lic health plan. Progress and expen­di­tures should be avail­able on a pub­lic dashboard.

A bud­get line alone does not indi­cate pre­pared­ness, and a warn­ing is not effec­tive sim­ply because it has been issued. Real pre­pared­ness is prac­ti­cal, vis­i­ble, and mea­sur­able. It means clear­ing drainage sys­tems before the rains begin, inspect­ing and rein­forc­ing dams, strength­en­ing bridges, com­mu­ni­cat­ing evac­u­a­tion routes, pre-posi­tion­ing med­ical and relief sup­plies, and ensur­ing that vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies are reached ear­ly, clear­ly, and in lan­guages they understand.

Water remem­bers its path even when plan­ning author­i­ties for­get it. We must stop approv­ing con­struc­tion in water­ways, neglect­ing drainage, and wait for dis­as­ter before enforc­ing plan­ning laws.

Yet rain is not our ene­my because Kenya needs this water. Our task is to keep destruc­tive water away from peo­ple while pre­serv­ing pro­duc­tive water for the future. We should restore catch­ments and wet­lands, improve soil absorp­tion, desilt water sys­tems, har­vest rooftop rain, and safe­ly direct stormwa­ter into stor­age and for ground­wa­ter recharge.

A fore­cast is time placed in our hands. The com­ing rains will test whether Kenya remem­bers, whether its new insti­tu­tions work, and whether we val­ue human life enough to act before mourn­ing becomes necessary.

So, will we har­vest the rain, or count the loss­es again? Think green. Act green.