I Just Had to Look

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Evening of 24 October: Of course I just had to do an after-dark recon of the neighborhood, especially after reading increasingly alarming local web reports about flooding events getting closer and closer to us.
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I was shocked to find the Chao Phraya River was much higher than I had ever seen it, right up to the top of the sandbag levee and flowing fast. Much, much higher than yesterday, and much more than government officials predicted. The water seepage through the river-front levee was up to the sidewalk, and a pathetically thin second levee had been built a bit higher at the sidewalk level. The bottom line is that the river levees here are very close to being overwhelmed.
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Two of the three main roads connecting our neighborhood with the city are cut off by high water. The third, the bridge over to the east side of the river, is passable at the moment, but the other side has flooded areas. [Update: This bridge is now also closed; we are cut off from resupply; now is the time to go on a strict diet!]
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I guess this means that I won’t be getting any ice soon.
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-Zenwind.
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Breaking Loose

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24 October: It looks like levees are breaking in places around our area in every direction, and there is a good chance we will get some floodwaters anytime soon, if not tonight. It is not life threatening, as the water should be no more than a few feet high and spreading out slowly. If you don’t see any posts here in the future, it is because I won’t have electricity or an internet connection. It is more of an aggravating inconvenience than a scary situation.
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-Zenwind.
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No More Ice

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23 October: This is bad. Local stores are all out of ice because re-supply of almost all items has been discontinued by flood-blocked roads. And our ancient refrigerator has about zero capacity to make ice cubes, so I always stock up on packs of ice from the stores.
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Street vendors are selling the last of their stuff as everything becomes scarce. Gone everywhere in the neighborhood are: coffee, eggs, canned goods, the better brands of beer, noodles, rice, and drinking water.
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We have a decent supply of drinking water, and we could always boil tap water if necessary on our propane stove. I have already been stocking up on a few necessities such as cat food. We really don’t need much food for ourselves because no one needs that many calories anyway in this awful heat.
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The state utility complex next door has added an impressive sandbag wall around their perimeter, so it looks like they will stay dry. But not us, because there are too many avenues for floodwaters to creep in with no ways of blocking it. It may take a full week for the water to get to us, or it might come fast “when the levee breaks.”

-Zenwind.
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The Slow Creep of Doom

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22 October: Well, I guess the Universe did not end after all, as it had been prophesized by Harold Camping. He always did seem like a loser. But doom seems to be approaching locally.
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On the northern rim of greater Bangkok, we are in an area officially deemed as a “Medium Flood Risk” zone. (Maybe 0.5 to 1 meter of water may hit us.) It is a slow steady onslaught of floodwaters, giving us time to react but perhaps giving us false confidence. Big, big water is heading our way, and neighboring districts have been hit hard. It is like a severely crippled zombie slowly crawling toward you with a fixed purpose.
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“[It] is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever!” (James Cameron)
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Cars are parked along our sidestreet, unusual for a weekend, as the owners are seeking to save them from high water. This may be a good sign in that they might see our street as “safe.” Maybe not, but one hopes. The mood is getting more desperate. Food and supplies are disappearing as people stock up.
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Hoarders and price gougers are demonized – i.e., vendors who are thought to engage in “charging unfair prices” can get seven years in prison and a huge fine. Shades of Richard Nixon. In a free society they would be recognized for their natural and legitimate role in providing goods to those who really want to pay the price in a market of scarcity.
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It is not good when government centers set up to shelter flood refugees are now being flooded and in need of evacuation. Dominoes are falling. Some are saying that it will take three or four days for the slowly seeping floodwaters to hit us. Another estimate is that this entire region will take four to six weeks before the excess waters drain completely. Watching and waiting.
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-Zenwind.
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Waiting for the Apocalypse: Will the Universe Be Destroyed Today?

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21 October: Vast floodwaters are descending on greater Bangkok, and we are prepared to move out on a moment’s notice. But more importantly, today is the End of the Entire World! Today is the date that the American shaman Harold Camping prophesied as the cataclysmic destruction of the entire Universe.
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Yes, he did fumble a bit last spring when he prophesied that The Rapture would occur on 21 May 2011, and when it did not happen he admitted that he was “dumbfounded” about the non-event. Maybe the Rapture did happen and he was simply not worthy of being taken up. I don’t know. No one I know came up missing on that day.
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But, as these shamans always do, he later recovered with some kind of apologetic mumbling about what the true significance of the 21 May 2011 date was. He then declared that today, 21 October, was to still be the day of the destruction of the entire Universe (as his original prediction had stated, presupposing the Rapture of the worthy ones in May).
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This whole episode is but a common occurrence in history. For instance, see the Great Disappointment of the followers of the American preacher William Miller in the early 1800s. It is a fascinating pathology.
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However, the floodwaters are still bearing down on us here in Thailand. I won’t be so smug if I’m swept away to Hell in a deluge before midnight Indo-China Time.
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If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow at midnight, head for high ground.
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-Zenwind.
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When the Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin

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“If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks
I’ll have no place to stay.
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“Mean old levee
Taught me to weep and moan
Mean old levee
Taught me to weep and moan
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“It’s got what it takes
To make a mountain man leave his home.
Oh well, oh well, oh well
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“Don’ it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They got no work to do
If you’re going down to Chicago
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“Cryin’ won’t help you
Prayin’ won’t do you no good
Now, cryin’ won’t help you
Prayin’ won’t do you no good
When the levee breaks
Mama, you got to move
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“All last night
Sat on the levee and moaned
All last night
Sat on the levee and moaned
Thinkin’ about my baby
And my happy home
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“Going, I’m going to Chicago
Going to Chicago
Sorry but I can’t take you
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“Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down
Going down, going down
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“Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down
Down, down, down, down.”
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Written by: John Baldwin, John Bonham, James Page, Robert Plant, Brian Stone; original by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy.
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Floodwaters Bearing Down Hard

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20 October: These are interesting times. I did not go out on my usual recon walk yesterday, as I was reading local internet news updates on the floods and making preparations at home. Today I ventured out, and what a difference a day can make! My first indication that things were really changing was seeing middle class folks on our street heading out with luggage. Moving out. Jumping ship.
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When I got to the Chao Phraya River I found that the river level was higher than I had ever seen it, much higher than two days ago or even at its previous high last weekend, and it was straining against the upper rim of the sandbag floodwalls and seeping through. That is a lot of water. Huge volume, fast water. Massive.
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Leaving the river and walking back along the main street, I immediately noticed the anomaly: traffic was jammed in the lanes moving North, to the main roads that are still open out of the city. What is that old saying about rats leaving a ship?
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All districts in our province have experienced flooding, although we are still dry for the moment. The immense amount of water flooding the Central Plains is unbelievable, but, believe me, it is heading our way. We continue to prepare, watch and wait.
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-Zenwind.
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Lots of Water Heading Toward Us

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19 October: We still do not know if we will be flooded out or not. It is a slow and steady onslaught of a huge water volume from the north, and it is getting closer. This is an extremely flat, broad and heavily populated floodplain, and the vast flooded areas upriver from us present a wide front of water wanting to flow to the sea. It is mindboggling to consider how much water is still upstream from us. Floodwaters find the paths of least resistance, and they break through in unexpected places along the long and over-extended system of quickly thrown-up sandbag floodwalls. It is closing in.
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If breaches in the floodwalls do divert water our way, we should have time to act before it gets too deep. We have already thought things out and are continually making preparations for the worst that could happen. Meanwhile, we stay close to home, watch and wait. And wait. And wait.
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-Zenwind.
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High Water Remains

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18 October: We are still high and dry – so far at least. There is still a big danger of flooding in our area, because of the enormous amount of floodwater still keeping many provinces under water up-river to our north. That water must drain downriver, and decisions on how to drain it, and when and where to drain it, will have an impact on all of us farther downstream.
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There are raging disputes over the policies that determine this diversion of floodwaters. To save some areas, water is diverted into other areas which are then devastated. For instance, inner Bangkok is (maybe) protected by sandbag and earthen dikes that divert the southbound floodwaters to the capital’s east and west, flooding many suburban neighborhoods (ours?) in the process. To the north, some residents are angrily confronting authorities who attempt to build dikes, because those dikes will save some other districts at the expense of their own. Disputes about opening or closing flood gates and building new dikes are bitter. There is one English phrase that Thais know well when applied to unfair treatment in politics: “double standard.”
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This anger and resentment from flood-devastated people with nothing left to lose may cause some to destroy the last dikes protecting Bangkok in order to share and spread the suffering. This would be not only a material tragedy but also a cultural one.
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On my daily walk I found the river level to be the same as yesterday and slightly lower than Saturday. Our neighborhood seems to be going about business as usual, except for new installations of sandbags in front of a few homes and shops, just in case. I stop and talk to a few friends who speak English; they are not that worried but they do admit that the situation is uncertain. Maybe their lack of worry comes from the perspective that all of this entire sweep of human experience is just impermanence anyway.
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-Zenwind.
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Have Floods Crested?

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17 October: Taking my daily reconnaissance walk by the Chao Phraya River, the water level still looked dangerously high, but I noticed that the amount of standing water that had seeped through onto our side of the sandbag wall seemed to be a couple of inches lower than yesterday. Some government officials are now claiming that the largest mass of floodwaters coming down from the north had passed Bangkok yesterday. Not that I trust any government's knowledge claims, but it does agree with my own hunches. Maybe we have seen the worst of it.
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There is still a lot of water upcountry behind full dams, in rice paddies and in flooded cities. This water still could drown us here if it were released to hit us all at once.
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Our mystery kitten that appeared over the weekend has just as mysteriously disappeared. Tuk saw its mother on the wall at one point. The kitten could have died, or its mother could have taken it. Perhaps “the monster,” as Tuk calls any monitor lizard, ate it. We fear the worst and wish we knew its fate.
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-Zenwind.
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