The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency issued its warning before the water rose. What happens between a warning and an evacuation is a separate question, and a harder one.

NiHSA warned on Saturday of a high riverine flood risk across 15 states, including Delta, Imo, and Cross River, running from September 19 to 25. Director-General Umar Mohammed’s advisory named the states, named the risk window, and urged affected communities to relocate to safer, higher ground.

A warning is only the first half of an evacuation plan. The second half is getting people somewhere safe. Who pays for the transport. Where families actually go, if the place they can afford is the floodplain itself. Who opens the shelters, and when, relative to when the water arrives. NiHSA’s advisory doesn’t answer any of that, and it isn’t NiHSA’s job to.

This is not the first flood advisory NiHSA has issued this year for overlapping sets of states, as river levels along the Niger and Benue basins have risen through the rainy season. Whether this particular warning turns into this year’s flood story depends on rainfall nobody can control yet. The warning itself raises a more practical question, one this letter can’t answer from here: which households in those 15 states actually have somewhere to go if the water comes.