Chennai floods

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 09 Dec 2015 12:49

Mana Madras Kosam: To Chennai, with love from Hyderabad

The Telugu film fraternity is pitching in with relief material to bail out Chennai

It’s going late into the night, but Venkat Siddareddy (who’s a faculty at the Ramanaidu Studios unit), managing relief material for all the trucks heading to a rain-battered Chennai from the Studios is still waiting for the last truck to be loaded for the day. Along with him are 40 other volunteers, including some of the film school students, some volunteers and several actors who’ve constantly dropped by to support with aide. His mobile battery is down, for he’s been spending a major part of his time in the last few days coordinating with actors and volunteers, for the ‘Mana Madras Kosam’ initiative organised by the Telugu film fraternity.

“Anything and everything ranging from biscuit packets, water, rice and dal is what we’re ensuring in the form of kits. For those who want to donate monetarily, we’ve specified account numbers, so that, our team can buy what’s required. There’ve been equal help from both fronts. It’s been going on for the last five days,” reveals Venkat. Though many people have lined up for contributions, both in terms of goods and money transfers, the issue has been the amount of used clothes they’ve received and can’t distribute. “The ones who’re helping should imagine themselves in the shoes of the affected. Moreover, with time, the need for more blankets, medicines, sanitary napkins and undergarments have risen. These were dimensions people couldn’t anticipate in their donations. Still there’s time and it’ll be a good sign to see these accessories reach us too,” he adds.

The cause taken up by the Telugu film industry has earned support and accolades from several quarters. While some people have conveyed their support on social media platforms, an impressive lot was also in action to garner all their resources together from their part. Technicians and actors, including the Rana Daggubati, Nani, Samantha, Allari Naresh, Allu Arjun, Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet, Madhu Shalini, Lakshmi Manchu and Navdeep have been flocking malls to ensure crowd support.

“It was a tough fact to digest, that we are so comfortable on one end and in another place, they’re battling for life, living without electricity, food, shelter and proper connectivity. Social media was a boon for people reacted so soon to what we initially thought was a small idea. To pull in a crowd of 15,000 on a Sunday was no small task. When we realise, anything from a candle to a match box to a mosquito repellent is needed, it is important that people chip in,” says actress Madhu Shalini, who reveals a part of Chennai always resides in her heart. She too had a nerve-wracking wait to know the whereabouts of her friend who was travelling from Tirupathi to Chennai until she got to know, he was safe. More trucks for ‘Mana Madras Kosam’ are being planned in the coming days.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 09 Dec 2015 15:50

SSridhar,
I actually read a rebuttal to the toilet article in Dhinathanthi. The WRD babu said we have to be always judicious on how we let/shut water from the lakes feeding the city. Too much water in the drain will also cause anguish among people and per them, the water outflow was with in the level. This is the level that they normally release during these times and even if they take in to account of the rain forecast, they were well with in their limits (33K cusecs for Chemberambakkam). The problem was the rain in the city, that resulted in about 60K cusecs flowing across Adyar so pointing fingers at the lake alone is not correct.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 09 Dec 2015 17:06

Reg the old couple drowning - heard another first hand account (as claimed by him) that a few people went to get them out and the old man mistook as them wanting to come inside for staying in their house and refused them entry and locked the gate but lost the key in rapidly rising water. The rescuers could not stay anymore and had to leave for their own safety. The old couple drowned and the rest could hear them but could not help. Tragic but stupid on the part of the old guy who did not trust his fellow people (if account is true, that is)

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Dec 2015 17:07

Rescued pregnant lady in labour thanks pilots after delivery

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 09 Dec 2015 17:12

They could have discharged the water a week before and emptied it in anticipation of the rains. Iirc, for atleast a week Ramanan was on tv saying there will be heavy rains. They are now giving lame excuse that if they did that, they would have been criticized for wasting precious drinking water which is BS because the forecast had more rainfall for the season and water would fill up anyway.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 09 Dec 2015 17:19

Singha wrote:>>Next time in Mumbai rains, Bhaiwood would be in full action.

during the mumbai deluge does anyone recall anything of filmi types coming out of their mansions to help ?

Well I remember one guy coming out with camera to record the carnage for use in films later (free production value) and had the blessing of the MH home minister for that. These are the bustards who lecture on intolerance

SaraLax · Post by **SaraLax** » 09 Dec 2015 17:28

Couple of articles on the dangerous effort of rescuing patients using boats at the heavily flooded Global Hospitals, Perumbakkam, Chennai.

Truly nightmarish situation for the people who had to undergo this experience including the patients themselves.

3 dangerous things happened during these lake breach type water flooding incidents and this affected hospitals, mobile network connectivity & etc
- Long duration power supply disconnect (for safety reasons) &
- simultaneous heavy flooding disabling the diesel gensets used to power the crucial medical equipments at the hospital &
- floods preventing normal movement of diesel/petrol fuel between refinery/depot & vending fuel bunks - leading to lack of fuel for powering the emergency gensets at various establishments.

This is a well known hospital nearby the IT corridor of the city and receives many international patients from Africa. Maybe the fact that this same hospital was flooded just a couple of weeks earlier in NOV-2015 might have helped them & remain aware of the possibilities for manifestation of the worst case lack-of-power scenario. The mobile network was also flaky at this time and soon after went out in these areas (again due to flooded gensets, used as fallback power supply for mobile base stations, seemingly placed at heights which were not safe enough for this type of lake breach caused flooding & in other cases - eventually running out of diesel fuel). I know this well - because i faced between 4 & 5 days of continuous power outage at my locality (a centrally located place in south chennai with all support facilities nearby) and the water logging still continues at my area just under 2 ft level.

This hospital is in a former lake bed area and the nearby lake breached during the heavy rains last week. Apparently during the flood, the water level was 8 feet outside of the hospital and around 3 feet inside the Hospital itself. They had to use boats to ferry out ICU patients on ventilators for more than 2 KMs amidst heavy rain to Ambulances and then got them shifted to nearby safer hospitals.

Trapped in a watery hell: What it was like to be stuck during the Chennai floods

...As soon as we moved out from the hospital portico, the rain and cold wind hit us hard. I was holding the umbrella over my mother's head, but the rain was ruthless. We were all soaking wet and had to travel nearly 2.5 kms on that boat to get to safety. The men navigated the waters carefully so as not to hit electrical posts, open wires, hard objects or anything else that could fatally injure any of us or leave us stranded in the water. The water depth had to be constantly monitored by men navigating the bot. We saw an ambulance, a water lorry and numerous vehicles sitting in eight feet of water as we moved out of the hospital gates. The area around the hospital is marshy and through the rain and cold we crossed the water body slowly. We actually rode on roads that were inundated in more than five feet of water and saw many homes submerged. There was not a single soul in sight. and the areas were uncannily eery and deserted. That 15-minute ride was perhaps one of the longest ones in my life. I kept asking every few minutes when we would reach safety.

Finally at 3 pm, we reached land, after a struggle of over seven hours. But our ordeal wasn't over yet. As soon as got to the Shollinganallur signal, the men quickly helped us out as they needed to go back and fetch more patients. We had been told at the hospital that there were two ambulances and a jeep there, that would help us reach home....

As per the news article - the State Health Minister Dr.C.Vijayabhaskar and the State Health Secretary Dr.J.Radhakrishnan were at the location (some 3 Kms away from this Hospital due to heavy flooding !) monitoring the rescue of all the ICU patients in this hospital.

A VIDEO of the rescue efforts at the flooded Global Hospitals, Perumbakkam in Chennai.

Another article from The HINDU : Patients evacuated from Global Hospitals in Perumbakkam

.
.
Ashwin Sridhar, chief nuero-surgeon at the hospital, said some parts of it had 12 feet of water.
.
.

But unfortunately at the same time - they couldn't prevent the tragedy at MIOT Hospital, Manapakkam at Ramapuram (another area built on lake bed) where 18 patients died due to lack of power for ventilator (57 ICU patients were rescued though).

In this case - the ultimate worst case 'lack-of-power-for-operations' scenario played out for real and some hospitals were found lacking a proper solution (a'la Fukushima Nuke Plant Disaster where a combination of Earthquake lead Grid Power Disconnect & Tsunami lead Diesel Genset Flooding - caused the nuclear meltdown at the power plant). Maybe keeping the Diesel Gensets at a height which is very very safe from flood water might have helped. Is this a plausible solution ?? Makes me wonder how the other flooded hospitals (along with their ICU patients) lying in low level areas of Chennai during this same flood coped with heavy flooding at the same time as power supply disconnect and still managed to not get affected in this manner. Some hospitals might well have been purely lucky !!.

So much real world knowledge, info & safety strategies adopted at various hospitals to handle this adverse operational scenario - might well be out there, waiting to get tapped & recorded & analysed & implemented for the future.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 09 Dec 2015 17:52

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 4#p1947450

linking the metro/MRT thread discussion here.

it has answers to Javee questions

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 09 Dec 2015 18:16

SSridhar wrote:I know of four IAS officers who were very visible during the calamity. Three collectors Gagandeep Singh Bedi in Cuddalore, Ms. Sundaravalli in Chennai, Ms. Gajalakshmi in Kancheepuram and J.Radhakrishnan, Health Secretary TN.

Thank You SSridhar ji, for this and others for the positive stories / people during this moment of disaster.

After every such incident / disaster we go on a search of finding those who erred. Sure people made mistakes but there were equal number of stories of smart work which, IMO, we should focus on and learn from things or practices which work.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 18:18

Bade wrote:The religion creep even in this thread is amazing...

It seeped in from real life to the SM life, if it is making news why not here?

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 18:22

Singha wrote:>>Next time in Mumbai rains, Bhaiwood would be in full action.

during the mumbai deluge does anyone recall anything of filmi types coming out of their mansions to help ?

If rumors are to be believed, actor Siddharth first tweeted the pictures from his house. Water had entered into his house, he tweeted if water could enter into an affluent person's house he could not imagine the horror of the poor. So he got into action with R.J.Balaji (a radio jockey). R. Madhavan later supported them. In the earlier rains, even Vijaykanth had got into the water - dunno if it was for publicity or actual work. Pretty soon lots of these actors were doing silent work. The good deed spread.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 18:23

Doctor worked for 90 hours, delivering 13 babies: http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/th ... 48205.html

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 18:24

Those who cannot read and understand should be thrown in the Coovum river, heard it is much cleaner. Will have a pleasant time in it than preaching here.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Dec 2015 18:31

gensets are invariably located in basements as the diesel tanks are buried underground for safety. will need a new design fuel pump if gensets gotta be on roof as storage is still going to be underground tanks.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 09 Dec 2015 18:46

Javee wrote:SSridhar,
I actually read a rebuttal to the toilet article in Dhinathanthi. The WRD babu said we have to be always judicious on how we let/shut water from the lakes feeding the city. Too much water in the drain will also cause anguish among people and per them, the water outflow was with in the level. This is the level that they normally release during these times and even if they take in to account of the rain forecast, they were well with in their limits (33K cusecs for Chemberambakkam). The problem was the rain in the city, that resulted in about 60K cusecs flowing across Adyar so pointing fingers at the lake alone is not correct.

It is a catch-22 situation all right.

But, there are two issues.

One is that the WRD babus aren't aware that it is not only the Chembarambakkam reservoir that discharges into the Adyar river but also many other lakes and so when a very heavy rain is predicted, the combined effect in the Adyar river downstream would be many times more than just the regular discharge from the reservoir alone. The WRD has all the data and should have been aware of the overall picture. We know pretty well that the WRD officials are generally lax in their approach to work as we have seen in the Porur lake encroachment issue or the encroachments of other water bodies too.

Two, the chain of command failed. According to the ToI report, the Chief Secretary was waiting to take the decision, possibly expecting the orders from somebody above him. In my employment, if I go to my boss for things which I have to take a decision on, I would not only get chided but I can expect no career progress, or worse still, adverse action. If you listened to these ministers who were interviewed on the channels during the relief operations, they would start off by saying, "As per Amma's orders, we are doing . . . ." etc. This is ridiculous that Amma has to order everything that falls within the normal job responsibilities of officers or ministers. This could be sycophancy but then as they keep repeating this, then one has to assume that the Chief Secretary was perhaps waiting for the CM to order the release of water.

SaraLax · Post by **SaraLax** » 09 Dec 2015 18:47

Bade wrote:The religion creep even in this thread is amazing...

Batoriji, the cool aid of uber-development of Madras was sold till the day before the floods. Those snake-oil salesmen have since disappeared. Too much of not as good as Madras does, for the neighbors was a constant refrain. Now all that is in the dustbins of history.

In any case the KL model of less development or even NO development means no or less unnatural obstacles to flooding. Now when the Periyar reservoir breaks out and flows down hill, that is something to watch for if a minor low level reservoir overflow can do so much damage in Chennai. At least the metro there will be floating 10 metres above ground in Cochin and there are no tunnels to worry about.

Danke Schoen Bade'ji - Schadenfreude - isn't that the proper word to be used to indicate the feelings expressed in your above bold highlighted lines ?

Hmm ... " all that is in the dustbins of history .."

Typical reaction of some sections of people - being bared in the quoted post.

Saar'e - Some basic mannerisms can't be hidden !. Wonder if the above lines blurt out in an uncontrolled gleeful manner ?

Infrastructure, Industrial establishments may have been affected by the floods. IMO - the Industriousness, Discipline & Long periods of acquired/learnt as well as embedded skills & domain knowledge across industrial sectors of the Chennai people does not get washed away by any type of a flood !!. Deutschland came back strong in Science & Industry after having been blasted to hell at the end of World War - 2 and its recovery was possible because it still had industrious people willing to set up again the completely destroyed industries using its leftover skilled local people & the available capital (Marshal Aid & etc).

Compared to 'Strike-for-every-stupid-reason' & Nokku Kooli type regions - Chennai is still a proud region which will come back...Capital at appropriate interest rates is required and the lessons delivered by this flood shall be learnt for sure. I am optimistic, the local people do have the ability to bounce back even if the outside people want to move out (which would mostly be Keralites).

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 09 Dec 2015 18:54

SaiK wrote:Bade, it is now Chennai calling: Houston, we have a problem! 9 million to beam up. Texan gun & personal land laws are a massan version of Indic RE mafia issue. There it is more of non-permeable concrete the problem. too much concrete and lesser deviations for flood water to drain.
It was already said after Katrina, that Houston and other areas be converted to marshlands and mangroves... that would help them tackle hurricanes as well.

Given a low-lying city, how would they want to utilize it? The concern is not to replicate Houston and say Chennai will fail. Of course, any low-lying place will fail when it rains if you ingest all those water as your RE problem input. Houston has the money, and lesser concern on corruption than Chennai.

Yes, we have a problem... don't copy, but rectify.. engineer a solution here.

Come on, saar

. You were earlier going on and on about massa this and massa that, but clearly the vaunted massa infra didn't help poor Houston, did it?

A blast from the past:

SaiK wrote:let us safely assume now, that MASSAN STYLE DRAINAGE WILL HELP CHENNAI from this type of deluge in the future.

Again, I will repeat. All systems have a finite capacity, and some flooding will happen if that's exceeded. The key at that point is to ensure the water drains quickly. And that's what Chennai should focus on. As someone said earlier on this thread (SSridhar sir, I think), the built up houses have done the damage, they won't be reclaimed. So flooding will need to be dealt with - by adding a lot more flood channels and mapping out the flood prone areas and informing people, so some of them can choose to stay elsewhere. I had commented on this earlier (http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1944712).

Also, reviving and completing this project will help a lot:

CAG says flood protection schemes in Chennai ‘largely not achieved’ - ToI, Dated Aug 2014

A shortcut diversion channel from Buckingham canal near Okkiyum Maduvu to the sea, as originally proposed, would have drained flood water (3,500 cubic feet per second) in no time and saved south Chennai from floods. But the state government had dropped the work due to increase in land acquisition cost involving Rs 100 crore, said a CAG report tabled in the assembly on Tuesday.

Citing lapses in several projects, the report said defective planning of flood control projects in Chennai led to delay and increased cost, thereby defeating the very objective of the scheme formulated to avoid flooding in Chennai. "The fact remains that alleviation of inundation of flood water in Chennai city remains largely unachieved," the CAG report said, adding that the state had incurred an expenditure of Rs 394.53 crore for this till September last.

The previous UPA regime sanctioned Rs 633.03 crore under JNNURM to improve macro drainages in Chennai as part of flood alleviation programme. The flood protection schemes were envisaged in ten packages along South Buckingham canal, North Buckingham canal and Central Buckingham canal.

Had the short cut diversion channel, conceptualized in 2009, been in place, Okkiyam Maduvu near Sholinganallur would have been linked to the sea, via south Buckingham canal, Injambakkam and ECR, precisely meant to resolve the huge time consumption taken to discharge major portion of flood water in the present system.

Currently, the flood water from Velachery, Madipakkam, Ullagaram, Puzhuthivakkam, Pallikaranai and Kovilambakkam is discharged into Pallikaranai marsh and Okkiyam Maduvu, from where it flows into Buckingham Canal and finally into the sea. The 'in fall' point in the backwaters of Muttukadu lake is 16 km from Okkiyam Maduvu, and the time taken to discharge flood water is more than 10 days, sources say. It was to reduce this time that the new channel was proposed as the sea is only 1.7km from Okkiyam Maduvu.

Similarly, improvement to Veerangal Odai drain intended to mitigate flooding in Velachery and surrounding areas could not be completed, due to land acquisition. Only 677m flood protection wall was constructed to drain surplus of Veerangal Odai, while the plan was to build 8 km long wall. Flood protection work in Central Buckingham canal, sanctioned in 2010, too could not be completed due to delay in eviction of encroachments and finalization of alignment, the CAG report said.

Despite presence of multi-storeyed structures of Tamil Nadu slum clearance board and heavy encroachments in work site, a drain work was taken up to divert surplus from Maduravoyal tank to Cooum river to mitigate heavy flooding in Virugambakkam-Arumbakkam drain. To sum up, flood control works in Chennai city, a joint venture of the state and central government under JNNURM, were still to commence in three out of ten packages. "In other seven packages, completion of works in near future appears remote, pending revised administrative sanction from the government," the CAG report said.

The government in its reply said that works under three packages of JNNURM which were not taken up were likely to be dropped and the remaining works would be completed on receipt of revised administrative sanction and after shifting of service utilities.

There are some reports that the Kanchipuram district collector has swung into action and has issued eviction notices to people living on some lake beds in her area of responsibility. She was also one of the proactive officials involved in flood related relief. I hope she is allowed to do her work without transfers, but who knows?

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 18:58

Vishy Anand's family opens doors to the some children from the slum: http://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/in-che ... ss-1252600

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 19:00

Mumbai Sex Workers collect and send Rs 1.lakh for relief: http://www.thebetterindia.com/39941/sex ... r-chennai/

member_28840 · Post by **member_28840** » 09 Dec 2015 19:01

So, I recently got back from a week long vacation on a tropical island, unfortunately there was no power for the duration of my stay and all the other guests left by boat on the second day.

I did however manage to spot the following aircraft,

A AW-101 on the morning of the 3rd, some VIP taking a tour of chennai i expect.
Several Cheeta and Cheetal helicopters, mostly in Navy markings and one coastguard. No AF machines spotted.
One lone elderly looking Mi-8 the airforce managed to scrounge up from somewhere carried out a single sortie around my little island around the 5th.
Several Dhruvs in camo paint airforce machines presumably (could have been army as well), one navy dhruv in blue, a dhruv in sarang display colors with the peacock (showed up around the 3rd, so possibly rushed in from bangalore) and finally a coast guard dhruv in white with some kind of ball EO sensor underneath (first time i have seen one in coast guard colors).

No fixed wing aircraft were spotted despite my 'island' being in the flight path for both Tambaram AFS and Chennai Airport.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 09 Dec 2015 19:10

A nice tribute to Chennai, from a Dubai based Malayalam FM station (Gold 101.3 FM). It's in Malayalam, though understandable if one speaks Tamil.

https://www.facebook.com/Gold101.3fm/vi ... 8/?fref=nf

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Dec 2015 19:15

There is IMO a logical fallacy in some conclusions that are being reached. Chennai had unprecedented rains. In fact even Bangalore, as a result of the same storm system received more rain in November than ever before in recorded history.

What this means is that Chennai is not going to have rains anything like this for another century. There is some chance of something like this occurring again in the next decade. So it is other cities that have to prepare. because some other city will get hit and we will have a repeat of these recommendations.

Chennai will recover but I predict that this sort of event will not recur for a long loooong time. Someone leave a message for me here if this is wrong. Of course you'll have to wait a decade or two..

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 09 Dec 2015 19:15

Here is another version on the Chembarapakkam Lake openings

http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/ch ... fury-36675.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 09 Dec 2015 19:19

Amma has 'ordered' manufacturers to conduct free 2 wheeler service workshops across Chennai.
https://twitter.com/AIADMKOfficial/stat ... 34016?s=03

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 09 Dec 2015 19:26

arshyam wrote:There are some reports that the Kanchipuram district collector has swung into action and has issued eviction notices to people living on some lake beds in her area of responsibility. She was also one of the proactive officials involved in flood related relief. I hope she is allowed to do her work without transfers, but who knows?

I mentioned four names early today in one of my posts and she was there. I forgot to mention a fifth name and that was the Collector of Tiruvellore, Veeraraghava Rao.

At lower levels too, I have personally witnessed the AEs, SEs of the Metrowater and TNEB and of course all below them putting in tremendous work. Their approach was quite the opposite of what they do during more normal times!!

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 09 Dec 2015 19:28

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 09 Dec 2015 19:35

is this another example of pappu's poverty p@rn??

Jobless GP ‏@DrGPradhan Dec 8
When all schools in Chennai & Puducherry are CLOSED where did this POGO character @OfficeOfRG found school kids?

393 retweets 196 likes

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 09 Dec 2015 19:39

I had a chat with my friends whose family was stuck on the upper floor of the house for 10 full days, they were stuck even till yesterday but at least the power was restored. Unimaginable hardships people have gone through and this buffoon (RS) is putting salt on those wounds by asking such questions to "Chennai". It was the great spirited rescue work launched by self-motivated individuals that saved so many lives. I am reminded of a saying in marathi "Talu varcha loni khanare", eating butter from the forehead of a dead body.

And in the above picture, are those the chappals which RG made an elder gentleman pick up for him?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2015 19:51

Chennai will recover but I predict that this sort of event will not recur for a long loooong time. Someone leave a message for me here if this is wrong. Of course you'll have to wait a decade or two.

I agree completely. And if it happens again next year then it won't happen for an even longer time after that!

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Dec 2015 20:00

UlanBatori wrote:
Chennai will recover but I predict that this sort of event will not recur for a long loooong time. Someone leave a message for me here if this is wrong. Of course you'll have to wait a decade or two.
I agree completely. And if it happens again next year then it won't happen for an even longer time after that!

And next year will be "too early to prepare fully" and after that no need to worry in this lifetime.

PS I wonder why a Katrina type hurricane has not hit New Orleans again. Or maybe I missed it.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 09 Dec 2015 20:17

these hurricanes not always land in massa.. they batter other south-american nations on the way. all depends on the directions.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2015 20:24

Last couple of years the aim has been worse than that of the French Air Force over Syria. But give it time... There was one that seemed to top even Cat 5 this year, headed for Mexico, but hit something on the way and weakened a bit. Wind speeds inside seemed to reach 250mph - unheard-of before. A few degrees north and...

I think it is Gov. Jindal's Force Field. But now his rule is ending, so the Field is out.. Democrat Governors attract hurricanes like a ripe chakka attracts flies. Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Destin, Mobile, Gulfport, NooOrlean, Houston, all are overdue. Question is whether hurricane or ISIS will be first.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 20:49

Confirmed news from my cousins, at least 2 companies (for sure) are doing some or all of the following:
* Pay period advanced. 50% being paid early to take care of financial needs.
* One company is giving Rs. 1 lakh interest free loan.
* Hotel accommodation is being provided for flood impacted employees.
* Emergency kits has been arranged at all the facilities.
* During the big action, critical staff were housed in Hotels and 'taken care'
* 1 company has given 2 days paid time to take care of personal needs.
* People who made it to work on 23rd, 24th or between 30th and Dec 4th have been 'cash compensated' (dunno the details)

Parents are really getting bored seeing the kids at home

Some schools seem to have given major portions in November off.

I think these floods would be talked more than the Tsunami times, for so many stepping up the game.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 20:51

prahaar: Narayansamy, a former Union Minister.

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/former-u ... ry-1252716

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 09 Dec 2015 21:02

Chetak, here is the video. He got smacked: https://www.facebook.com/balaji.crossta ... 795315275/

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 09 Dec 2015 21:04

Since cities like Houston flood regularly after each deluge (even without hurricanes) one can expect more frequent floods in our coastal cities like Chennai with increasing development (concreted surface area). Next in line perhaps is Kochi...another perfect storm with a deluge, overflowing reservoirs and continuing incessant rains. The topology and surface gradient saves the day largely and having a large openings to drain into the sea...but for how long without proper planning and increasing development.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Dec 2015 21:09

The area north of vembanad lake is below waterline btw by many feet.rice paddies are well below level of canals

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 09 Dec 2015 21:19

SwamyG wrote:prahaar: Narayansamy, a former Union Minister.

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/former-u ... ry-1252716

Thanks!

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 09 Dec 2015 21:25

Singha wrote:The area north of vembanad lake is below waterline btw by many feet.rice paddies are well below level of canals

I think you mean to the south where kuttanad is...the rice bowl....is definitely below sea level and floods regularly...my BILs house is surrounded by water and no roads...only accessible by boat 365 days of the year...A thin sliver maybe 5km or so wide is below sea level near Kochi...like the islands...Fort Kochi and Wellington and near coast on Ernakulam side...But this is true of most of the coastline areas.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 10 Dec 2015 04:29

This gives new meaning to the old song

She went in 2 da water & she got her knees wet..
.....
But she didn't get her wet..