One Rain, and Kisela Voda Is Underwater Again: The Drains Didn't Cope, the Institutions Sprang Into Action Once It Was Already Late

One heavier afternoon rain was enough to turn Skopje's streets into rivers again. Kisela Voda got the worst of it, with water filling the streets and the storm drains failing to catch it almost anywhere. Citizens raised the alarm, the photos spread, and the question stayed the same as every summer - why does something we know is coming catch us off guard every time?

Rain isn't a disaster. Rain is a weather forecast. The disaster is when a city's infrastructure can't handle a few hours of heavier rain without spilling out onto the streets. When the drains don't catch the water, that's not an act of God - it's an unmaintained network that has been waiting years for someone to clean and widen it.

And here comes the familiar Balkan scene: once the water is already knee-deep, the institutions spring into action, crews come out, statements go out that 'work is under way on the ground'. Rescue after the flood always looks flashier than the quiet work that would have prevented the flood. But a citizen with soaked shoes isn't looking for heroics in a crisis - they're looking for drains that work before the rain falls.

The question of accountability isn't rhetorical. Clean, unclogged drains aren't a luxury - they're the basic precondition for any municipality to function during storm season. If the same streets are underwater every summer, then the problem isn't in the cloud over Skopje - it's that between two floods nobody does the work that prevents them. Until the next heavier rain - and it's surely coming - let's see whether anything changes, or whether only the statements change.