Orchard Road Flood (Personal Experience. Pics Included!)

As what I have mentioned in my previous post (where I blogged about the flooding situation at Orchard Road), that nothing's gonna stand in my way of my planned shopping trip this afternoon, YES... Not even when Orchard Road was hit by a flash flood today (16 June 2010). I also took photos which you can see below.... :p


Before I even reached, I knew that the flood situation would have subsided or be over and done with by then. Afterall, I believe that our drainage system isn't that bad, as compared to some other countries. Moreover, Orchard Road is such a prime district, I bet that after this incident, the Government will put in more effort to ensure that such flash floods will never happen, especially in areas such as Orchard Road or the CBD area.


But one thing I am puzzled with - It was reported on 20 November 2009 that Singapore will experience flood once every 50 years, as seen in this article. Erm, it's less than a year. Can anyone explain why today's event happened then?


Well anyway, I reached Orchard Road about 3pm. By then, the street was cleared of water, vehicles can move easily and there were not many signs of flooding. But many businesses were badly affected, especially those shops located at the basement level of Lucky Plaza.

My previous post mentioned that Lucky Plaza basement level was flooded.
So here's a video I found in Youtube.

Everyone was busy sweeping the water away....

...Into this hole.
And then the water/debris was pumped out into a huge orange tank truck.

Imagine you are one of the staff working at these shops,
but it's your off day today. You are one lucky dude/chick! LOL!

This shop placed cardboards on the floor. Not sure it's Bossini or Baleno.
It had to be closed for business. When I walked past again at 6pm, the staff were all busy packing the clothes into cardboard boxes, preparing to be brought away. To where, I dunno.

So I continued my walk to Paragon as I had planned to shop there today and then I witnessed a bad after-effect of the flash flood. You know that Rolex centre between Lucky Plaza and Paragon? It is located in Tong Building, and guess what? The basement private carpark suffered BADLY from the flood. See pictures below...

Poor Lorry...

Civil Defence Force @ work...
These men not only fight fire okie....

Oooo.... They are from the Central Fire Station!
I visited this station a few months ago, you can read about my trip over [HERE].

Kpo people, as kpo as me.... Heheh~

After shopping for close to 3 hours in Paragon and happy with my latest purchase, plus an eyebrow threading session at Browhaus, I went back the same way that I came from and boy, they were still draining the water! But at least, the water level was lower.

At 3pm, the water level was up till half of the lorry's headlights.
At 5.45pm, the water level is seen as below...

And some photos from my friend's FB photo album.
The flood in the morning.

Oh well, even if it's once every 50 years, just let it be. But we shouldn't put the entire blame on the drainage system. Afterall, the debris and rubbish that get washed off by the heavy rainfall this morning into the drain may be one of the reason for today's flash flood in Orchard Road? Who knows? So always throw your litter into the refuse bins.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. - John Updike

UPDATED: The 3rd blog post (put up on 22 June 2010) with more pics of the flood. Click [HERE] :)