Flood, alerts in Chonburi, Eastern Seaboard

[Gaybutton]

The following article makes it sound much worse than it has actually been, at least in Pattaya and the beach area. We have been getting rain, but it has been nothing at all like the torrential rains the article is talking about. The rains in Pattaya and the beach area have been more of an inconvenience than anything else, and I have not seen any flooding at all. I feel terribly sorry for people who have had their homes destroyed in other districts, but quite frankly I prefer the rain we've been experiencing in Pattaya lately to the terrible drought we were experiencing at this same time last year.

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CHONBURI, July 2 (TNA)

 

Torrential rains caused flash floods as high as two metres in some areas in this eastern seaside resort province on Sunday, inundating hundreds of houses and causing some damage.

 

Rains are forecast to continue for two more days. Many villages in Chonburi's coastal Banglamung district were submerged Saturday night after heavy downpours brought flash floods in the areas.

 

Some villagers said they were unprepared as floods hit the areas quickly and they never experienced such a large scale flood before.

 

Reflecting the localised nature of the weather, some areas of the coast received no rainfall at all.

 

Rescue workers rushed to help the flood victims with boats but relief efforts were hampered as a main road was cut due to two-metre high waters and some parts of the road were impassable.

 

Water run-off in the eastern seaboard is complicated by several bands of superhighways and expressways, coupled with industrial zones and other development which has atered previous run-off channels.

 

Nonetheless, the floods caused heavy damage to hundreds of homes and buildings, roads and other infrastructure.

 

Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department issued its updated weather forcast, warning residents in the Eastern region, particularly in Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat provinces to brace for possible flash floods and water run-off on Sunday and Monday.

 

Due to the influence of the Southwesterly monsoon which still covers the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, there will be heavy rains for two more days. Fishermen are warned to stay ashore or risk the danger of waves as high as three metres which are expected in the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

 

Some other parts of the country are likely to face heavy rains--as much as 60-70 per cent of the kingdom.

 

(TNA)-E001

 

[Guest Hedda]

I'm not an engineeer but it seems to me that the Thais do a bad job in failing to anticipate and design their construction projects for normal rainfall, much less extraordinary amounts of rain.

 

The yellow brick road on Jomtien Beach is an excellent example of bad engineering. There are several sections where there seems to have been no planning to deal with ordinary rain run off, resulting in the walk getting flooded or even washed away in every hard rain.

 

In addition, the entire walk is subsiding in rainy season at an alarming rate, making the overall surface uneven , with the cement access boxes now proturding several centimeters above the walk. It's a lousy job, not matter how you look at it, and getting worse.

 

They also seem to construct their highways and roads without much regard for the effects on water runoff. I remember seeing some awful flooding in the deep south back in 2000 and it was obvious that the roads had been built too high above normal ground level, acting like dams preventing runoff and causing the homes along the highway to be flooded by water that was trapped inside.

 

I realize that flood control, especially in areas that have heavy seasonal rains, is not an easy task and can be very expensive. But like tourism here, the thais seem to have a lot of energy to build things that destroy the ecology, without much thought to spending money to preserve or protect what they have.

[Gaybutton]

It's another on the list of things I can't figure out about Thailand and the way things are done. My own street is a perfect example. About a year ago I woke up to the sound of heavy pounding and my whole house was vibrating and shaking. I thought we were having an earthquake.

 

What was actually happening is that a piece of heavy machinery was breaking up each side of the street. There, of course, was no prior notification of this. They did this because they were going to install drainage ditches, similar to what you see along the 'yellow brick road.'

 

The ditches were indeed installed. During the period of about three weeks when a four-foot wide trench, equally as deep, stood as a moat between the houses and the street, there was no provision whatsoever for getting out the door and into the street and vice-versa. All the residents had to create their own makeshift ramps or try to jump across. If a handicapped person lived on my street, he would have been trapped inside his home until the drainage ditch was in and street repairs were made.

 

Maybe I should rephrase "street repairs." Almost nothing was done. The few repairs that were made were as shoddy as it gets. If you could see my street you would think an earthquake really had happened. It's been well over a year and the street condition steadily deteriorates. Nothing has been done. The Thai residents seem to take it all in stride. Nobody seems upset and these people will simply continue driving over the rubble until it becomes completely impassable.

 

To this day, I still have no idea who authorized the installation of these drainage ditches. I don't know whether it was the city or what. I also don't know why it was done in the first place. My street is on an incline. We never had a flooding or drainage problem here at all, even in the most torrential rains.

 

I would have thought that if installation of these ditches was important, so would be keeping the street in decent repair. Apparently not.

 

Meanwhile, all the homes here are on septic tanks. We were told, five years ago, that the city was going to connect these homes to the sewer system. When the trenches for these ditches were being dug, that's what I thought was going on. To date, there is still no sign of these homes being connected to the sewer system.

 

A lot of money was spent for these drainage ditches, needlessly in my opinion. Not one baht is spent on what these homes and streets really need.

 

It's the same at Dongtan and the same where these terrible floods occurred. The rains never were all that torrential, certainly not enough so that large numbers of people's homes should have been severely damaged.

 

It seems to me that the engineers who "planned" these modern marvels must have gotten their engineering degrees from Ed's College and Car Wash. Perhaps from the back of a matchbook cover. Nothing ever seems to be fully thought through.

 

A close friend sums it up best, I think. "Thailand seems to be reactive about everything. There never seems to be anything proactive. On the rare occasions when proactive thinking does come into play, it doesn't work."

 

It's not just engineering problems. It's just part of the usual poor planning. The 1:00 AM entertainment venue closing hours comes to mind. That was supposed to curb teenage crime and gang activity. Meanwhile, there is is more teenage crime and gang activity than ever before. It reminds me of Reagan's logic when he tried to justify a tax increase after promising a decrease. Remember? "We have provided a decrease by reducing the amount of the increase."

 

Well, at least lack of logic isn't confined to just Thailand . . .