PTI Premises Flooded As Students Go Fishing

The premises of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Warri, literally became a fish pond,following an early morning downpour that
flooded the school.

Students plunged into the
pool on walkways to catch fish brought by the flood.

UGOCHUKWU SOSTHENES (Petroleum Engineering and Geo-science) reports.

Students of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) in Effurun, Warri, Delta State, woke up last Tuesday in a pool.

The campus was flooded,following hours of an early morning downpour,
which did not stop the ongoing second semester examination.

Students were seen wading through the water-logged pathways to
their examination halls.

The heavy rain started at 4am and lasted two hours. Many students were trapped in classrooms where they went to study at night ahead of Mathematics examination to be
written the following morning.

The two-hour downpour unfortunately resulted in the flooding
of their classrooms.

The school library, which has a well-
constructed drainage, was equally flooded.

The flood carried in its rage, a heap of debris to the school gate messing up the entire area.

Some areas on the campus could not be accessed owing to the flood.

The flood, gathered, might have
been caused by the nearby Effurun River,which overflowed its bank.

Different live fish were seen swimming in the flood on the
campus.

The roads leading to the campus
stadium and the main Laboratory Complex were unpassable as many feared dangerous reptiles might be in the flood.

To the students, the fish were manna from heaven. Some, who were not writing examinations that day, waded through the flood to catch fish.

None of the students who went “fishing” returned empty handed; they all went back to their hostels with their catch.

Describing the flooding as unprecedented, a lecturer, who did not want his name in print,said: “Ever since I started teaching in this
school, I have not witnessed this magnitude of flood on the campus.”

Sunday Egon, an ND 1 Science Laboratory Technology student, who went for night reading before the rain, said: “When water started flowing into the classrooms, everybody started packing their books. Then, it became unbearably cold.

We were all trapped and could not return to hostels, because the
flood covered every pathway.

It was difficult to distinguish the drainage from the pathway. We
ended up going late for our papers,” he said.

It took more than 12 hours before the flood receded. A management source blamed the flooding on poor drainage in the town.

The drains in Effurun had been blocked for years, because of poor construction and blockage by waste materials.

The source said PTI may continue to
experience flooding until a cleanup exercise is carried out to through the drains and canals in the town.