Dubai property boss says floods were overexaggerated: ‘Things like that happen in Miami regularly’

Hussain Sajwani, the chairman of Damac Properties, one of many United Arab Emirate’s largest personal actual property builders, sought to downplay the severity of flooding in the nation earlier this month, saying there were solely “pockets of problems.”

On April 16, the usually dry desert nation in the Gulf was pummeled with roughly a yr’s value of rain in lower than a day, greater than it has ever seen in a single storm since data for the UAE started in 1949. 

Flash floods that fashioned led to water engulfing automobiles, in some areas absolutely submerging them, main a whole bunch of drivers to desert their autos on roads to flee the rising water ranges. The deluge additionally closed colleges and companies, grounded a whole bunch of flights, and destroyed automobiles, companies and different property. It threw day by day life into chaos as many residents misplaced energy and operating water or were trapped both inside their properties or in airports, or wherever they occurred to be when the storm hit.

Damac’s Sajwani conceded there was chaos on the airport, however mentioned the UAE had recovered a lot sooner than different nations would have.

“I think the subject was overexaggerated, honestly,” he informed CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Sunday, talking on the World Economic Forum’s “Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy for Development” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“Fine, we get some, in one of the malls, some damage. But if the mall is 3 million square feet … and if a 100 meter leakage or whatever happens — it’s not the end of the world and it was fixed the next day.”

He defined that he arrived in Dubai from London only a few hours after the rains had stopped, and visited all the foremost properties that belong to his firm.

“There were pockets of problems, I’m not saying no, but it was overly exaggerated … Any country, I mean, you see floods and things like that happen in Miami regularly and houses get destroyed and people get evacuated. That’s today with the environment changing. Everywhere in the world you’re getting those kinds of storms, OK, and Dubai has been hit with that. But they managed it very well,” he mentioned.

He later added he did not see that classes needed to be discovered because it was an uncommon storm. “It hadn’t hit the country for 75 years,” he mentioned.

The UAE’s National Center of Meteorology mentioned that japanese elements of the nation measured as much as 250 millimeters — 10 inches — of rain in lower than 24 hours. By distinction, in a full yr the UAE usually sees 5.5 to eight inches of rainfall per yr.

Due to an absence of drainage infrastructure and the very fact that the nation’s city areas are paved over, a lot of the water had nowhere to go, exacerbating the flooding in many areas.

The nation’s cleanup efforts are nonetheless ongoing. One multistory condo constructing close to the border of Dubai and the emirate of Sharjah cracked and tilted over due to structural damage from the storm, and was fully evacuated as a result of it was in hazard of collapsing.

Some Dubai builders reportedly provided free repairs and vowed to take motion after the report rainfall. Damac told Al Arabiya English that it had labored across the clock with the native authorities authorities to assist residents, deploying a number of tankers to gather floodwaters.

A Damac official additionally informed the information outlet that its upcoming developments had not been impacted by the flooding. Speaking to CNBC, Sajwani mentioned that his agency’s properties were largely left unaffected and it “almost had no incidents” — however could not verify whether or not residents would obtain compensation.

“The good thing we did a) our infrastructure has been done, in my view, better than a few others. The other thing is, two days before the storm come — because the warning was there — I had a Zoom [call] from London with our management. And we agreed to put an action plan. And we took a very good action plan. So we were ready for it.”

“We had zero impact. I mean zero impact. I’m telling you 98% of our units, maybe more, were intact,” he added.

—CNBC’s Natasha Turak contributed to this text.