Food victims in lower Tana should be resettled away from their current homes, Tana River Governor Dhado Godhana has said.
Speaking in Hola town on Saturday when he met a team from the national disaster response team led by Joseph Emathe, Dhado said that the destruction of human settlements and other property had greatly affected the residents.
At least 2,000 people from Bakuyu and Mororo displaced by the floods are hosted in camps in the neighbouring Garissa county.
The governor said the government should start with those currently in displacement camps by providing them with basic necessities such as mobile health facilities, toilets and clean water.
"Going forward, the camps should be turned into formal human settlements with all the basic necessities among them health centres, water points and schools. All land prone to floods should then be turned into farmland," Dhado said.
"In the first place, no human settlements should be allowed on riparian land along the vast River Tana that is prone to floods."
Dhado urged the disaster team to consider placing mobile boats in areas affected by the floods to ease transportation of relief food across the river into villages that cannot be reached by road.
Emathe said the military was ready to work with disaster committees at the county level to airlift relief food and medicine to areas that have been cut off.
"We are always prepared to assist where we can. Send your request to us and it will be discussed at the highest level for consideration," he said.
Emathe said the military was working closely with other security agencies to reinforce outposts along the Kenya - Somalia border to keep off the al Shabaab militants.
He urged the communities in such areas to collaborate with security agencies by volunteering information on suspicious movement to enable security agents to act on time.
Edited by Henry Makori