All vacation leave was canceled and a total of 110 emergency teams were placed on standby as Jeddah faced up to the possibility of heavy rains over the city. The Director of Civil Defense in Jeddah, Brigadier Abdullah Jiddawi said that his administration had canceled all vacation for its officers and privates as soon as he received an alert from the Presidency for Meteorology and Environmental Protection (PME) of the possibility of rainfall. Jiddawi said monitoring teams were deployed to the valley courses, the sewage lake and precautionary dams. They monitored for any possible floods coming from the Al-Shu'aiba region. He said rescue and evacuation teams were out at the Jeddah's old districts to deal with any possible collapse of old houses in the area. Jiddawi said the Civil Defense had not received any reports of houses collapsing or stranded people late Saturday evening. He said that Prince Mish'al Bin Majed, Governor of Jeddah, was following the weather conditions and all the reports. Jiddawi warned motorists about driving in flooded streets. He also called on the public not to neglect covering their electricity meters. Meanwhile, there have been no reports of disruption of flights at King Abdul Aziz International Airport. The PME said there was a chance of medium to heavy rains on Sunday, as rain-bearing cumulus thunder clouds will continue their presence over the southwestern and western highlands. Engineer Muhammad Qattan, Director of Operations at the Jeddah Mayoralty, said the mayoralty has not registered any flow of water in the valleys at the edges of the governorate. He pointed out that the Operations Room at the mayoralty received on Thursday and Friday a total of 569 reports of water being pumped out in certain areas. The mayoralty had sent water tankers to pump out water collected in pools and intensified insecticide spraying operations and cleaning. He also said 25 water tankers belonging to the National Water Company participated in pumping out the ground water in Al-Samer 3 District. Qattan described the rain that lashed Jeddah at the weekend as “light to moderate” and “did not last long”.
