Screenshot
It does not always take an earthquake, a war, or a plane crash to test a country.
Sometimes a country is tested by ordinary things. Rain. Sunshine. Traffic. A broken road. A delayed ambulance. A flooded street. These things look small when we see them on normal days, but when they happen at the wrong time and in the wrong place, they quickly turn into a national problem.
Then the uncomfortable question is; are we ready when a real disaster comes, or are we only comfortable when life is normal and predictable? One of the biggest but least discussed disaster risks in Uganda is transport.
Uganda depends on roads for almost everything. Food moves by road. Fuel moves by road. Patients move by road. Workers move by road. Exports move by road. Some of us are still traumatised by the experience of December 29, 2025, when a couple of events caused heavy traffic in Mpigi.
Trapped in traffic for over twenty-two hours in just three kilometers. Everyone thought it was normal Christmas traffic. Man. It turned into a sleep over in cars and exhaustion. The traffic police unit was stretched. It caught us unaware.
Just unserious stuff as always as Ugandans can take it to be. If an ambulance cannot pass, people die. If trucks cannot move, businesses lose money. If security cannot move quickly, crime increases.
If fuel trucks are stuck in traffic for many hours, that alone is a dangerous situation. A country can become paralysed not because of a war but because movement has stopped.
Now, every Ugandan has experienced some form of disruption that shows how thin the line is between normal life and chaos. A heavy downpour in Kampala floods roads within hours. We read it in the papers or watch it on TV. Do some memes on social media.
Then we move on. But Bro, shops close early. Taxis cannot move. People abandon cars and walk. Businesses lose money and man hours for that day. Imagine people trapped in buildings, roads cut off, electricity down, hospitals overwhelmed.
Do you recall the Covid times? If a simple downpour can stop Kampala city, what happens when the rain becomes a disaster? Floods are not new in Uganda. These are Ugandan events.
Hundreds of people have died in landslides over the years and thousands have been displaced by floods. Many times, the pattern is the same. Heavy rain comes. Rivers overflow. Roads are cut off. Relief comes late. People rebuild.
Then after some years it happens again. The disaster is not just the rain. The disaster is that the same damage keeps happening again and again. Disasters in Uganda are not only caused by too much rain. Sometimes too much sun.
Long periods without rain destroy crops and kill livestock. Hunger then becomes a slow disaster. It does not happen in one day like a flood. It happens slowly. Food prices rise. Families reduce meals. Children leave school. Health becomes poor.
And when people think of disasters, they often think of big dramatic events, but small events that move quietly and affect millions of people over a long period of time. It can even be a mental illness. Just go to Butabika and other rehabilitation centres. Then there are disasters we cause ourselves.
Fires in markets and schools. Road accidents. Fuel tanker explosions. Poor construction that leads to building collapse. These are not natural disasters. These are human disasters. They come from poor planning, weak enforcement of laws, corruption, and negligence.
When a market burns and traders lose all their goods, that is not just a fire. That is families losing school fees, rent, food, and their future. Disaster preparedness is not only about having police, soldiers, or hospitals.
It is about planning, infrastructure, communication, and discipline. A disaster does not destroy a country in one day. It exposes the weaknesses that have been ignored for many years. And sometimes the warning signs are small. A flooded road. A burning market.
Twenty hours plus jam. These may look like normal problems, but they are also warnings. Warnings that a real disaster can come. Don’t think about what my Nyamiyaga head is roaming about. We have international chaos.
And time is passing to uncertain times. Imagine an international fuel crisis. The disaster will not ask whether we are ready. It will only reveal whether we were prepared or not.
The author is a concerned citizen.
