"Those 90 Hours" A Major Throwback of 2015 floods

“Those 90 Hours” A Major Throwback of 2015 floods

Chennai
Chennai Floods
News

7 years ago

Chennai Floods : Dec 1-5 2015 Jafferkhanpet, Behind Kasi Theater.”Those 90 hours” Explained here :'(

December 1

Rainy Evening, Looking for announcements from Collector/ DC/ RDO like they last did a couple of weeks ago when water was let out from Sembarambakkam. Nothing till 12:30am. Last time the announcements were from 11:30pm-12:30am. So retire to sleep.

Wake up at 3:10am as my driver and office assistant are sleeping in the ground floor with their families due to rain water outside their house and they spot a little water entering the ground floor as their bedsheets are wet.. They make sure to keep all the things on the floor on tables and suddenly at 3:30am water is 2-3 ft and I ask them to come upstairs right away..As they climb..water climbs 3-4 stairs.

December 2

5:30am ..Sleepless night as we take turns watching the water levels. Cars almost submerged…Water about 3-4 ft from road levels and cards inside the house activate their safety sensors and start beeping… Neighbours cars just started beeping 20 mins ago on the road. Cars beep all over the neighbourhood, non stop for the next 45 mins.

06:55am and reality hits us as day breaks. Our compound wall almost flooded. Neighbours in the same condition and we started moving things from first floor to the second floor, to prevent a repeat of the ground floor. Situation worsens around 11am, Our neighbours’ ground floor door, compound wall is fully submerged at this point.

We move to the second floor terrace and our only form of communication at this point is relaying information across terrace around 11:15 am.

Finally the army choppers arrive at 12:15pm and survey. They kept their surveillance on until noon December 3rd flying overheard every 3-4 hours. Mostly checking in the Adyar river. Finally they drop breakfast.

3pm- water levels reach its peak. Ground floor submerged, less than a feet before it enters the first floor.

December3

Thursday, 8:30am. Water starts to recede finally and we breathe a sigh of relief even at 9 feet.

Things become better, vehicles once again become visible, because they are on top of another one.

Thursday 9am. Rescue finally arrives. Local boys of Jafferkhanpet arrive on boats.The guys are all standing on compound walls not ground. First rescue successful.

2:30pm, NDRF finally arrive..water is already at waist level now..Boats empty..People refuse help as things are almost over. The NDRF folks can hardly communicate as they speak only english. Surprisingly the same evening on AIR..NDRF, Advisor Operations, Major General, Anurag says language is a big big barrier for folks from NDRF when communciation networks break down.

December 4th

Friday, 10:15am , we walk around our neighbourhood and those are bikes we collected that was randomly washed away. Folks walking around trying to spot their bikes.

This is is not a car crash on a freeway. This is the impact of Adyar river.