Written by Jimmy Irvine Allan, Sunday 6th Nov 2011
Thailand Floods

I write this blog as I have had a few people asking me what the airport and surrounding areas where like when I flew in because of the flooding because they have friends coming who were worried whether they would have a problem or not. And of course because my thoughts and prayers go out to the people and there families who are affected by these floods.

So before I flew to Bangkok last week I had seen the news and knew there was flooding in Thailand to what extent I hadn’t really thought. It wasn’t until we were flying over Bangkok I was looking out of my window and thinking, “man there’s alot of rice fields around us just now” then looked back in the plane as there was a sudden silence and everyone seemed to be looking out the windows. So I looked out again, that’s when I noticed they weren’t rice fields and I started to notice the tops of houses popping out the top of the water, then motorways disappearing into the water and coming out again 20 or so metre’s along, with cars all lined up both sides either abandoned or some real patient drivers sitting. Was pretty hard to look at after a while but yet I couldn’t stop looking and thinking how bad this was for the people there. Streets were like rivers, housing estates like lakes, so much water. Sitting next to me was a Thai lady who was coming back to see her family and see they were all ok. She hadn’t said anything for the last half our so as we flew over and I could see she was welling up and finding it hard to look.

So we arrive at Suvarnabhumi Airport, which seemed to be pretty water free and running fine with flights incoming and outgoing no problem. From there I flew with a connected flight from Bangkok to Phuket which I think at this time would have been alot easier than taken the bus. I’m sure there would have been an alterative route if the one they usually use was flooded but on this time I had a flight booked and I couldn’t say for sure.

When I arrived in Phuket I switch on the tv and see what I expect endless footage of the floods happening and the damage that is being done. Some parts getting so much flooded that they have to direct the water elsewhere this meaning all that happens is the next area of houses, residential, shopping, and industrial areas get flooded also ofcourse making this area annoyed and upset at the last area, but then this has had to just keep on happening meaning a great area is now affected by the floods. Bringing the death toll up to approximately 500 today is tragic with some more rain falling and no real time scale how long it will last is horrible. They say even with the amount of water it would take 3 weeks to clear saying there was no more rain fall. Gladly it is now coming to end of the rainy season so we can only pray it is going to get better.

Down here in Phuket there doesn’t seem to be any flooding or whatever rainfall there is doesn’t seem to stay around for very long. Being there is no great over flowing Dams to start it of which is how and where alot of the water came from to North of Bangkok when a 40 percent more rainfall fell than in previous years during the last few months forcing them to release some of the water. Sadly thus flooding 64 of Thailand’s 77 provinces flooding homes, temples, and destroying rice fields.

What you can notice is alot of the shelves in the big supermarkets are lying empty due to the fact that maybe they can transport goods very easilly just now or alot may be going out to help the people affected. Other than that Phuket seems to be fine and I hope this doesn’t stop people coming as Thailand’s income strongly depends on tourism.

Hopefully this answers some questions or just let’s some people hear what’s going on….

Jimmy