The first day of school Saturday saw classes mostly empty because parents fear that further bad weather could pose a threat to the lives of their children. This reluctance to return to school is a result of “Black Wednesday”, as Jeddah residents have now called the floods of Nov. 25. The disaster cost over 100 lives and caused extensive damage to the city's infrastructure. Intermittent showers have been falling on Jeddah over the past few days. It appeared that students would not attend classes until they were assured there was no danger from possible further floods. Shroog Talal, a lecturer at King Abdulaziz University, confirmed that large numbers of students stayed away from the classes the first day after the Haj break. “In my classes the total attendance was three students out of sixty for each class,” she said. Text messages and e-mails have been doing the rounds stating that the resumption of classes have been delayed at both schools and King Abdulaziz University. “The news that was spread by text messages and e-mails was not right. We started school as scheduled according to the plan received from the Ministry of Education,” said Rabha Attar, the principal of a private school in Jeddah. According to Mohammed Al-Dukhaini from the Ministry of Education's public relations department, Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad, the Minister of Education, instructed school authorities to have measures in place to ensure the safety of students if bad weather returns. “Prince Faisal stressed the importance of school managers following up on reports and warnings issued by the Meteorological and Environmental Protection and the Directorate General of Civil Defense about the climate and any risk of possible floods, sandstorms and other disasters,” said Al-Dukhaini. Some parents are not prepared to send their children to school until the all-clear has been announced by MEPA. “If a flood comes, it will be unpredictable and will happen in a very short time, which will make it difficult to save our children. Staying at home is safer than sending them to classes on rainy days,” said Raniya Bagdady, a mother of two. “My work is 30 minutes away from my children's schools and that has made me think twice about sending them to school,” said Mansour Holdar, an employee at a private company. Shadiya Afandy, an elementary school teacher, said that measures are in place to deal with any emergency situation. “All school authorities have safety measures in place to deal with any natural disaster such as a flood, including plans on how to evacuate children. We hope that the number of students will increase every day and by the beginning of next week the situation will be back to normal.”
