Reporter's Diary: Kenyan urbanites brace for El Niño

Anyone who has lived in Nairobi for a few years knows the feeling of anxiety when weather reports warn of an impending El Niño.

I remember past flash floods all too well; main roads turning into rushing rivers within minutes, traffic sitting still for hours, and families in low-lying areas losing their homes and belongings.

But as I moved around the Kenyan capital filming my story for CGTN, I saw something that surprised me. For the first time in a long while, the city isn't just sitting back and waiting to be flooded. There is an active, urgent effort happening right under our feet.

I watched workers in bright reflective vests pull up heavy concrete slabs. I smelled the damp earth as they dug out thick piles of plastic bottles, mud, and garbage that had been trapped under the drainage lines for months.

Beyond digging out trash, I also saw crews laying down new concrete water paths and installing big sewer pipes to redirect heavy rainwater away from neighborhoods.

While filming my story, I had a sit-down chat with Bramwell Simiyu, Nairobi's Chief Officer for Disaster Management and Coordination.

He didn't make excuses for the city's past failures. He told me directly that blocked waterways were the main cause of previous flood disasters.

"As you know, part of the reason we have had flooding in the past has been cases of the drainage system, the waterways, the pathways, that have been blocked or clogged," Simiyu explained. "So, we have a subcommittee that has focused on ensuring that we clear and clean up the drainage systems, and we are able to repair some of the clogged parts that we have identified."

What touched me most was his point that the city is focusing on real human lives, not just maps and engineering plans.

"We have gone around and identified all the hot-spots from a humanitarian perspective," he said. "We are focusing on areas where we are likely to have a significant disruption of lives and livelihoods."

To see what that means in reality, I headed to the outskirts of the capital. In areas that usually end up underwater, I saw local residents standing by, watching the

government's excavators with relief.

I met Cecilia Muwasa, a small-scale trader who knows the pain of losing a home to water.

"Floods have disorganized us for far too long," Cecilia said. "But this time round, we have witnessed the government fixing the drainage systems, and we are hopeful that our house will not flood when El Niño hits."

At the same time, I learned that government action is only one side of the coin. Small business owners cannot wait around for promises when their daily income is on the line.

I met Joseph Gikundi inside his small retail shop. Instead of sitting idle, Joseph built raised wooden shelves to lift all his goods high off the floor.

"We have just put ourselves in a situation that we have to lift our things," he said, pointing to his elevated stock. "So that when it rains, when the water enters... we can be settled somehow."

Standing beside my camera crew near one of the newly expanded water outlets, I felt a genuine sense of hope. These drainage works aren't just concrete and dirt, they represent a real fighting chance.

The United Nations describes El Niño as a naturally occurring climate pattern that typically develops every two to seven years, when waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become unusually warm. That warming can alter atmospheric circulation thousands of miles away, shifting rainfall and temperature patterns everywhere.

The threat is high for Nairobi, but I truly believe that if the cleared waterways hold strong when the storm arrives, Nairobi won't just survive this weather phenomenon, it will protect the people who make this city home.