Yeah, sure. It just has to fly out of Bangkok on the usual mail flights to the US. Those are still running okay. Just got back from doing that and making one more grocery run, to Siam Paragon. Figured they’d still have stuff if anyone did, and they did. So now we’re stocked up, banked up, mailed up and staying inside now for the next couple of days. Bring on the water! This is like a slow-motion tsunami. Still dry out there and everywhere else I went today. Rains may not be quite over yet after all. Rained last night, looks cloudy today.
Just heard the entire water supply over in Thonburi is bad. Smells bad, looks funky. I think it’s time to do some more laundry while ours is still holding up.
Reporting from Pranburi, close to Hua Hin. Tide is very high today, no beach here!
On the way out of the city didn’t see any flooding from Ratchada to Rama II, there were hundreds of cars parked on the expressways though. I guess the guys at the tollboxes must be making a little extra money this month…
People were double-parking on the Expressway, which was really screwing up the traffic flow. Then the cops started towing away the extra parkers. They’re allowing the outside lanes to be used, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s still some double-parkers left. Saw a line of cars parked along the outside line on the section close to our place. They must be pretty desperate to park in the traffic lane of a friggin’ freeway! We were taking a look from atop our building, 36 stories, so I guess on the roof itself would be 37 stories, and the river looks pretty normal down this way still, although I did see some water in a field along it.
This is completely third-hand, but the wife was talking to a fellow resident of our complex, who in turn had been talking to the chief of a neighboring district, who flat-out told her both our districts were completey safe, neither of them in any danger. But he said they can’t say that publicly due to the heat they’d take if that turned out to be wrong.
Think this will have any political ramifications? Is the idiocy/happytalk of the government likely to hurt them next time around, or is it par for the course in Thai politics?
All of the above.
The whole idea of getting Thaksin’s sister elected prime minister was to pave the way for him to slip back from exile without having to serve his prison sentence for corruption. But now I’ve just started hearing coup rumors again.
The government has finally issued a formal request for assistance from the US Navy ships in the area.
Sunday morning and still dry in our neighborhood.
Political analysis of the flood effects. The first of many to come, I’m sure.
The Flood Relief Operations Command, eloquently known as Froc, was forced to flee its base in Don Muang Airport due to flooding. Loads of relief supplies the public had donated and which were left behind have been inundated as well. Wankers. Angry resdients along Chaneg Wattana Road broke down an earthen dyke, causing the road to flood; that’s close to where we used to live years ago.
But I’m going to go out on a limb and predict no flooding at all where we’re living now. We’re patting ourselves on the back for our excellent choice of location. Missed the floods this year and were off the rioters’ radar last year.
I stumbled across a photo (from a recent Nation newspaper?) which illustrates the amazing Thai ability to seek smiles even in the face of adversity.
(Actually, Google didn’t show me a non-password source for this photo; I uploaded it to “imgplace.com” myself.)
They’re saying the whole city is in danger again. Apparently the water that was pushed offf to Nakhon Pathom province northwest of Bangkok is going to come back. WTF??!? What is this, some sort of water monster roaming the countryside with a mind of its own? How in the hell does it “come back”? Plus angry residents in flooded Sai Mai district of Bangkok are breaking down dykes and forcing the government to open sluice gates wider than it had intended in order to get the water out of their neighborhoods more quickly and to hell with the rest of the city. I can’t believe this is not over yet.
But where I am, we’re still dry, dry, dry.
And may it remain so!
At the current rate the water is moving South over the city, I may get wet feet by the weekend.
Fortunately the Bangkok governor invoked a clause in some law that allows him to defend the city, thus overriding the bitch prime minister’s order to open the sluice gates wider. They’ve been lowered back to a more manageable level now and so we may escape danger yet. Nice train photo near the top of this story. Plu a Flood Watch story here.
Meanwhile, something like three dozen green mambas that someone imported from Africa escaped in one of the northern suburbs that have been flooded. These are apparently highly venomous and now join the escaped crocodiles as a water hazard. It’s getting to be a real jungle out there!
Initial reports of three dozen green mambas loose were a bit alarmist. It turns out it’s only 15 highly venomous green mambas slithering through the waters. Phew!
And speaking of reptiles, here’s a short piece on how the Great Crocodile Escape will affect the fashion industry: Floods have fashionistas fretting
And a baby elephant was born of the floods in Ayutthaya.
Pfff… pity the mambas, they’ll be cobra chowder in no time.
Geez, will this never end? The wife just called me from her office and said they’ve been put on alert for next week. Said central Bangkok is – again – expected to take on water next week. It depends on how the – new? continuing? returning? – mass of water coming down will break and flow.
Schools and universities everywhere in the area don’t even know when to begin. October is the midpoint between semesters over here, and the second semester was supposed to have already begun. No one knows what to do.
How did that work out for you and your in-laws? We now know that Don Muang – both the district and the airport – have been inundated. I know people who have had to move out from that area.
After leaving the office the taxi driver took me to Ladprao road (couldn’t argue the guy out of it), had to stop before the intersection with Ratchadaphisek because there was about 40cm of water on the road. Got off the taxi and found a more reasonable driver to take me home.
Going back to the bleeping snakes in the bleeping flood, a seven meter python was caught in front of the flood relief operation center, which was relocated from the flooded airport last week and it’s already getting flooded… no, it doesn’t inspire much confidence in the government’s ability to stay ahead of events. :rolleyes:
Further down the page - those zebras look upset at all the water.
Well, half the time, anyway.
The floodwaters have reached the Lat Phrao intersection in northern Bangkok. That’s getty close to the edge of central Bangkok. Very close.
Roger Crutchley had this good piece on the floods in Sunday’s Bangkok Post. Crutch is an Englishman who just retired from the Post after 42 years, but he’s still writing his weekly column. I’d plumb forgotten about the piranha rumors during a previous flood.
And we have a snake catcher on the job. A “rai” is a local unit of land measuremnet. One acre equals about 2-1/2 rai.
I sometimes click to a daily-updated government site showing which roads are closed (?) to all (red) or small (green) vehicles. (You have to zoom in several times to see much useful.) It shows only two road closures east of the river in central Bangkok. Is that the Lat Phrao intersection (about 3 kilometers North of Central Latphrao) you refer to, and is it closed to traffic?
With the floods just north of Bangkok, Bangkok-bound traffic from the far North was exiting the Asia Highway way up in Kamphaeng Phet to Lat Yao and then to Suphanburi via back roads. Eventually the Lat Yao road was damaged (by water? or by the detouring trucks?) and the detour signs were moved even farther to the West.
But in the flood-free parts of Central Thailand, the situation is now improving. The stores are starting to stock bread and fresh milk again. 