It's the first time ever, in 124 years, HK has flooded. And that's a really big deal!
And it seems we missed the most spectacular part, since we woke after the tide had turned and those photographs in the post below are more than an hour after its peak.
Here's a photograph of Wan Chai during the peak, taken by a South China Morning Post photographer. Amazing, la?
9.00 am. From SCMP.It happened because we had 8 days straight Rain and Heavy Rain, with hour long bursts of Amber Rain and Red Rain, and then , on the morning it happened, eight hours straight of Amber Rain followed by a sudden burst, at around 7.00 am, just as a particularly high tide was coming in, an hour of Black Rain, the heaviest by a third of any hour's worth of rain in HK ever. (see post below for what this Rain Grading all means.)
Too much for any system to handle. Like I said, it's the first time in 124 years that HK has flooded. Naturally, this being HK, officials are now all craw-thumping and brow-beating , all "How could we have let this happen?" and "How did we fail you so badly, Beloved Citizens!!!" and "Heads will roll, we promise you!" and other girly-swot, think-too-much nonsense!
Normally I'd be saying "Get over yourself, HK. You can't be blamed for failing to anticipate the totally unexpected. It's called An Act of God for a reason!" only I like the way HK government does this. I think every government on the planet should feel guilty and personally responsible for every single even marginally inconveniencing that happens to every single person under their governance.
And if they want to feel so "Mia Culpa!" I think we should make the most of it, and if our lifts hadn't been fixed so quickly - within 24 hours - I'd have expected them to provide sedan chairs and bearers, preferably young and handsome, in loin cloths and with oiled bodies, to carry me up and down those stupid sodding stairwells.
And you should see HK the past two days. Since it happened on the Saturday of a long weekend when everyone was away, there were only the tiniest number of council cleaners around, and they were only doing the debris from the spilled rubbish bins, so no one was touching the ankle deep mud left behind. , Then it dried and hardened and dust blew around, just like it was Karachi or Peshawar or some other small third-world city where they don't have hordes of house-proud elderly Hakka ladies cleaning their streets.
There appears to be something wrong with the Blogger today,. It's really annoying to use and it's not letting you clean up errors, so forgive me if I post this with errors and all, and I'll come back later to sort it all out when, hopefully, the problem has been corrected.
In the meantime, here are a few links:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VlZHLq-oVF0&feature=related
The one above is the news story, but if you want crazy-insane amazing stuff, try all the ones below. Wow!!
Wednesday update: Council Cleaning Crews of young men are currently coming through with high pressure hoses. Guess our Grumpy Grandma's don't do mud! Hey, remember how they were all down on their hands and knees, although not at all happy about it, two years ago, scrubbing away the vomit after the police tear-gassed the WTO rioters? I guess vomit is one thing ... but mud!! Don't blame them! Four inches of truly fetid mud is where I'd draw the line as well! No, wait! I wouldn't have done the vomit either!
Too much for any system to handle. Like I said, it's the first time in 124 years that HK has flooded. Naturally, this being HK, officials are now all craw-thumping and brow-beating , all "How could we have let this happen?" and "How did we fail you so badly, Beloved Citizens!!!" and "Heads will roll, we promise you!" and other girly-swot, think-too-much nonsense!
Normally I'd be saying "Get over yourself, HK. You can't be blamed for failing to anticipate the totally unexpected. It's called An Act of God for a reason!" only I like the way HK government does this. I think every government on the planet should feel guilty and personally responsible for every single even marginally inconveniencing that happens to every single person under their governance.
And if they want to feel so "Mia Culpa!" I think we should make the most of it, and if our lifts hadn't been fixed so quickly - within 24 hours - I'd have expected them to provide sedan chairs and bearers, preferably young and handsome, in loin cloths and with oiled bodies, to carry me up and down those stupid sodding stairwells.
And you should see HK the past two days. Since it happened on the Saturday of a long weekend when everyone was away, there were only the tiniest number of council cleaners around, and they were only doing the debris from the spilled rubbish bins, so no one was touching the ankle deep mud left behind. , Then it dried and hardened and dust blew around, just like it was Karachi or Peshawar or some other small third-world city where they don't have hordes of house-proud elderly Hakka ladies cleaning their streets.
There appears to be something wrong with the Blogger today,. It's really annoying to use and it's not letting you clean up errors, so forgive me if I post this with errors and all, and I'll come back later to sort it all out when, hopefully, the problem has been corrected.
In the meantime, here are a few links:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VlZHLq-oVF0&feature=related
The one above is the news story, but if you want crazy-insane amazing stuff, try all the ones below. Wow!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-aMQtKzsS0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajr6bzxDs44&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwm5pAPzS0k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8PaEQp36OU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vZK1EdGqDg&feature=related
Wednesday update: Council Cleaning Crews of young men are currently coming through with high pressure hoses. Guess our Grumpy Grandma's don't do mud! Hey, remember how they were all down on their hands and knees, although not at all happy about it, two years ago, scrubbing away the vomit after the police tear-gassed the WTO rioters? I guess vomit is one thing ... but mud!! Don't blame them! Four inches of truly fetid mud is where I'd draw the line as well! No, wait! I wouldn't have done the vomit either!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment