After all the heat wave going around, it finally rained yesterday. When I woke up in the morning as usual, I saw the rain splashing down in torrents. It would have been a day of rejoice because finally the weather cooled a bit.
Luckily it was not too bad on my way to work because even though there was rain and visibility was poor, there was no heavy jam. Hence I could still reach office early. By mid-morning, the storm had become stronger and only stopped around noon.
Then there were reports of the floods at Orchard Road. For those who are not familiar, Orchard Road to us is like our "capital", if we ever have a capital. It is the equivalent of Tokyo's Ginza district to the Japanese, the New York City (okay, New York City is more glamorous) to the Americans. Orchard Road is the place of branded stuff, designer wear, and the entire row and stretch of shopping malls. Needless to say, it is also the base of the great sale going around at this time of the year.
Yet it got flooded. There have been history of flooding in our little island, but never in Orchard Road. So it was a first that Orchard Road could actually flood. Cars were submerged, basement stalls were wrecked. One Starbucks which I used to frequent at an open basement was completely submerged. Stalls selling watches and electronic products were ruined.
All in all, there was a loss of millions worth of products, and some of the stalls had to shut for two weeks for massive cleaning. Talk about bad timing! Just when this is the season for them to make the most profit, they had to lose so much business. We are not even sure if insurance can be claimed since this is clearly an "act of God".
In any case, people have been kind enough to send me pictures of the destruction. I must say the workers here are efficient indeed. The flood was on until mid-afternoon, but by evening time when I took the bus that passed through that stretch, already the streets were clean and dry with no trace of flooding at all!
Luckily it was not too bad on my way to work because even though there was rain and visibility was poor, there was no heavy jam. Hence I could still reach office early. By mid-morning, the storm had become stronger and only stopped around noon.
Then there were reports of the floods at Orchard Road. For those who are not familiar, Orchard Road to us is like our "capital", if we ever have a capital. It is the equivalent of Tokyo's Ginza district to the Japanese, the New York City (okay, New York City is more glamorous) to the Americans. Orchard Road is the place of branded stuff, designer wear, and the entire row and stretch of shopping malls. Needless to say, it is also the base of the great sale going around at this time of the year.
Yet it got flooded. There have been history of flooding in our little island, but never in Orchard Road. So it was a first that Orchard Road could actually flood. Cars were submerged, basement stalls were wrecked. One Starbucks which I used to frequent at an open basement was completely submerged. Stalls selling watches and electronic products were ruined.
All in all, there was a loss of millions worth of products, and some of the stalls had to shut for two weeks for massive cleaning. Talk about bad timing! Just when this is the season for them to make the most profit, they had to lose so much business. We are not even sure if insurance can be claimed since this is clearly an "act of God".
In any case, people have been kind enough to send me pictures of the destruction. I must say the workers here are efficient indeed. The flood was on until mid-afternoon, but by evening time when I took the bus that passed through that stretch, already the streets were clean and dry with no trace of flooding at all!
Our Olympic countdown
Police officer helping a submerged pedestrian
Wonder how the cars even managed to move?
Our newest icon - The ION(which I have not had the time to actually explore the whole place)
Borders Bookstore (just below Esprit is the submerged Starbucks)
How ironic for the bus to go by at this time. We were all surprised indeed at the state of affairs.
Even though I did not personally witness the flooding and destruction, I do hope nothing of this ever happen again! It would not be a good experience to wade in knee-deep water and mud!
3 comments:
A photo of the flood in Orchard Road made the front page of The Star today.
We experience these kind of floods in KL whenever there's a downpour, and we also have "added effects" like tree branch falling onto car and injuring driver, hahaha.
Oh, I didn't know this is considered "newsworthy". A Malaysian friend told me there are floods in KL many times, so when she heard how people make a fuss over our flood, she didn't think there's anything special. But I guess because we never experience this kind of flood, so people would take it as if it's something big.
I agree! I remembered the last time when there was a lil flood in S'pore it wasn't submerged like that! Gosh!
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