ALKHOBAR: Eastern Province residents are hoping the recent winds die down and give them the chance to dust themselves off and get back to enjoying a sunny summer.
Tuesday morning was calm compared to Monday night when visibility diminished from Dammam and Alkhobar to Jubail and just about everything that wasn’t tied down shook in the wind.
“Mercifully, the worst happened at a time most people were in bed,” said A. Fettah Ennayal, director general of Mohammad Dossary Hospital in Alkhobar. “Of course, the air was still heavy and the sky was still blanketed when the sun came out; the fury of the storm had petered out by then,” he said.
Although some tended to exaggerate it, the Meteorology Office did give advance warning of the storm and apparently people listened. For people with respiratory problems, however, it resulted in a trip to the clinic. After a dusty spring, hospitals made sure they had plenty of appropriate medicine on hand.
“We are always prepared for all kinds of emergencies,” Ennayal told Arab News. “This time we were particularly ready because the warnings from the Met Office were very dire.” He said there was marked increase in the number of patients they received Tuesday night having breathing problems. “This is normal,” he said.
It was a little abnormal for some Eastern Province residents who put travel plans on hold rather than risk the 400 km ride to Riyadh.
“We heard frequent bulletins on Saudi Radio advising people not to hit the highways in view of the impending storm,” said Saad Al-Nasser, a computer science student at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran. “It may not look very bad in the city, but on the highways it is extremely difficult. And the worst part is you cannot even pull your car onto the side. It is dangerous, and your chance of getting hit by an unsuspecting vehicle is very high. So why take the chance?” he said.
Flights at King Fahd International Airport remained unaffected, and train services to Riyadh continued on schedule.
Usually this time of year, it is busy on the King Fahd Causeway linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. Thanks to the weather it was relatively quiet.
“There is heavy rush usually on the weekends,” said Saudi Customs officer Fahd Humaid Al-Shamrani. “Tuesday morning, the traffic was down considerably, but as the skies cleared we saw increased traffic flow.”
Summertime is a family time with trips to the beaches and fun parks. Sadly, the dust had some children down in the doldrums.
“We kept indoors. The children were restless because they have nothing else to do, and going to the Corniche is the only available entertainment in the evening,” said Abdul Bakr Mahdi, a father of five children who wish it wasn’t dusty outside. “That is what we do, but thanks to the reports in newspapers, we stayed indoors. The children were not amused.”
Weather experts say strong winds blowing at this time of year is not unusual and that some media reports sounding the alarm may have been, well, overblown.
Hussein Al-Qahtani, spokesman for the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment, said the office did not issue a warning that the impending storm would kick up two billion tons of sand in the Kingdom.
Talking to Arab News, Al-Qahtani said a warning was issued about seasonal northern winds blowing across the northern deserts, which usually kicks up a lot of sand and dust — a normal phenomenon not expected to produce unusual situations in the Kingdom’s eastern and northern parts in addition to some areas in the south on Wednesday.
“The north wind, sometimes carrying dust, is a common phenomenon every year in the summer months,” said Al-Qahtani. “There is nothing unusual about it.”
— With input by Muhammad Humaidan in Jeddah
