The governorate of Karak, with its ancient history and distinguished geographical location in the south of Jordan, has recently faced waves of sweeping floods that turned vast parts of its cities and villages into disaster areas. These events were not just passing meteorological phenomena; they revealed a painful reality of weak infrastructure and the state institutions' unpreparedness to deal with recurring natural disasters. The challenge Karak faces today transcends the amount of rainfall; it is a challenge of responsibility and governmental negligence that exacerbated the damages and turned the crisis into a real humanitarian and economic disaster.
The disaster manifests at several interrelated levels. Firstly, the material destruction inflicted on private and public properties. The floods swept away homes and farms, and caused severe damage to the roads, water, and electricity networks. In some low-lying areas, streets turned into muddy rivers, isolating residents and completely disrupting life. This destruction represents not only a financial loss but also temporary or permanent displacement of families and loss of their livelihoods, especially since agriculture is vital for many local communities in the districts of Al-Mazar and Al-Qatraneh.
Secondly, the initial response to the disaster was slow and uncoordinated, highlighting a structural flaw in the national and local emergency management systems. Despite the existence of theoretical emergency plans, practical implementation showed clear inadequacies in coordination among civil defense, public works, and local mobilization authorities. Delays in clearing main and secondary isolated roads led to a delay in delivering basic aid and evacuating those trapped, increasing despair and anxiety among citizens. This failure raises serious questions about the readiness of equipment and personnel to deal with major flood scenarios, a phenomenon that has become frequent in the kingdom.
The root cause of this negligence lies in the chronic neglect of old and inadequate infrastructure unfit for changing climatic conditions. Rainwater drainage networks in many neighborhoods of Karak, particularly the historic and relatively unplanned modern areas, have not been maintained or developed for decades. These networks were not designed to withstand the sudden and enormous amounts of water caused by intense low-pressure weather systems. Poor urban planning and allowing construction in natural flood paths without strict oversight facilitated the sweeping waters' journey to the heart of residential communities. The ongoing absence of network updates is a direct negligence by the ministries responsible for infrastructure and the governorate.
Furthermore, there was administrative shortfall in the predictive and warning aspects. Despite weather forecasts predicting heavy rainfall, it seems that the warnings were not translated into tangible preventive measures on a local level. No proactive evacuation operations were activated for areas most at risk, nor were precautionary measures taken by the infrastructure authorities to remove expected obstacles from flood paths before the storm hit. This failure in the proactive aspect indicates an administrative culture that tends to react rather than prevent, which is very costly in the context of disaster management.
The social aspect of negligence also appears in the mechanism of distributing aid and compensations. Shortly after the disaster, the pace of government support slows down, and the bureaucratic procedures to obtain damage compensations become complicated and prolonged. These procedures create an additional burden on families who have lost their properties and now rely on limited resources during the recovery period. The lack of transparency and fairness in assessing damages and distributing aids fuels frustration and mistrust in the government’s ability to protect its citizens and care for their interests after the crisis.
Dealing with the disastrous situation in Karak requires more than just temporary clean-up campaigns. It requires clear accountability of officials who neglected the maintenance of essential infrastructures, developing realistic and practicable emergency plans, and a comprehensive update of the sewage and stormwater drainage networks in all threatened areas. It also requires a review of urban planning regulations to ensure that construction in flood paths is not repeated. The general sentiment among the residents of Karak is one of abandonment; they felt they were facing the force of nature alone, and that government agencies had entered a mode of rapid crisis extinguishment rather than sustainable risk management.
In conclusion, the devastation caused by the floods in Karak governorate represents a deep wound that extends beyond material losses to include trust in public institutions. The recurrence of such disasters in various areas of the kingdom confirms that the deficiency is not momentary but is the result of accumulated governmental negligence in preventive investment, ineffective planning, and weak operational response. Restoring normal life in Karak requires a concerted effort by the community, but first and foremost, it requires a serious governmental commitment to repairing the crumbling infrastructure and holding responsible those who have neglected what was a relatively predictable climatic event, turning it into a widespread humanitarian disaster.
