One hour of rain. From 20:40 to 21:40 on 16 July. That was all it took for Bitola to turn into what residents filmed on their phones: streets underwater, rocks and soil washed down from the higher parts of town, damaged vehicles, flooded houses and yards.

The worst-hit was Debarska street. The same street whose reconstruction began during a similar downpour on 23 June this year - less than a month earlier. The rain ripped out the layers of asphalt laid down over the previous days. The rebuilt stretch collapsed before it was even finished.

When a person tells it better than any report

„For years they've been doing streets and never getting round to paving them. You'd think this isn't the centre. The streets are dug up, vehicles get damaged. The stones battered my kid's car, they wrecked it”, said Elmir Sulejmanovski, a resident of Dimitar Vlahov street. He added that he himself fell into the dug-up street while it was raining - a deep hole had opened up.

Another resident, Dushanka Sulejmanovska, nailed the core of the problem in one sentence no urban planner will phrase more precisely: „The drain is full of sand and rocks, trees are growing in it. The water needs somewhere to go, but it's blocked. That's why the floods happen.” And then the question that carries the whole story: „My whole home turned into water. Who's going to pay for my laminate flooring?”

This district is a five-minute walk from the centre

This is not some forgotten outskirt. This part of Bitola is under five minutes on foot from the very centre. Some of the streets there - 11 Mart, Pande Nikolov, Kozara - were dug up in April 2025 and still haven't been paved. The Kozara reconstruction has been running for over a year. Mayor Toni Konjanovski has already apologised to residents for the delay and promised the works would be stepped up.

The promise is old. The rain was yesterday.

Who answers for the blocked drain

Local critics pointed at the obvious: the storm-water system needs an urgent overhaul, and it's the unfinished construction works that fill the channels with mud and rocks. An unfinished project isn't just a delay - it is an active source of the sediment that clogs the drain at the next rainfall.

Opposition figures in the municipality reacted sharply. Gabriela Ilievska of the „Poinaku” movement criticised the leadership, and a detail also surfaced publicly about a tender worth 4 million denars earmarked for catering services - which critics call a strange priority in a city that drowns with every heavier shower.

Public utility crews went out into the field, the „Niskogradba” company and the Territorial Fire Unit pumped out water and cleared the debris. That is a response, and it is necessary. But a response after every rainfall isn't a system - it's a ritual.

An hour of rain is not a natural disaster. It's a test. Bitola failed it twice in three weeks, on the same street. The question for next time isn't whether it will rain - that much is certain. The question is whether the drain will have been cleaned.