The floods that swept through Bisha has revealed the governorate's alleged poor preparations for heavy rainfall, including inadequate barriers, narrow flood channels and the construction of home on flood routes. However, director of the Roads and Transport Administration in Bisha Governorate, Ali Al-Ali, rejected such claims. He said the damage to bridges and roads in Bisha and its villages were not significant, describing it as “minor landslides”. He said his administration has maintenance contractors who will repair the damage. The damage was largely to roads and bridges. The Wadi Bisha (Bisha Valley) area, where floodwaters ran strongly, the municipality-built Namran Bridge barriers, that protect Namran and Sufan districts, collapsed. The Namran Bridge project cost about SR6 million. The owner of a house being constructed south of the city of Bisha, Nasser Masoud Al-Daraani, said the foundation of the house he is building on municipality-granted land, collapsed when it rained recently. “The municipality gave me land on a flood route,” he said. Another resident, Misfer Saeed Al-Zahrani, claimed that homes in Al-Subaihi were badly damaged by the floods because they were also built on a flood route. Many teachers could not reach their schools in some areas following rockslides that blocked the mountain road of Al-Ozaila, 100 kilometers south of Bisha, which connects several villages.
