All Flood All the Time

Bangkok hasn’t hosted an Occupy Movement protest, but it has been occupied. Preoccupied, even. These past couple of months it’s been all flood all the time. At the beginning the first question people asked each other was “Are you still dry at home?” Everybody’s assumption was that the water would eventually reach most parts of the city. Not whether but when.

That prediction didn’t hold water, so to speak, but neither did about a million other guesses about where would be wet and for how long. Around the outskirts of the capital today, many densely populated areas are still inaccessible by car.  Now people’s first question is, “Can you go home yet?”

Two days ago, coming back from an out-of-town trip, I watched water swallow up the wheels of our bus as we drove the main highway in front of the old Bangkok airport. That stretch of road, only a few miles from my apartment, has been submerged for more than six weeks.

The building where I live ended up dodging the flooding, so I lucked out compared to many of my colleagues whose homes remain waterlogged. I wore high rubber boots on my way to work for a few days, but I really only needed them for parts of a block or two where regular shoes would have gotten swamped.

Up until recently, nobody knew when they left in the morning how or if they would be able to get home. That’s been the most frustrating part. Good information has been very scarce. Friends of mine who live with aging parents or pets were forced to make awkward decisions about when to evacuate, knowing that the time and effort of finding temporary housing might not end up being necessary.

It wasn’t like Hurricane Katrina in that respect. Some neighborhoods were spared. Others were inundated suddenly when barriers broke or were torn down by jealous neighbors who had been wet for weeks. In the dry areas, all signals suggested that the next day might be deluge day: people sold inflatable boats and life preservers from roadside stands, stores built cement block walls out front. The uncertainty has made it hard to concentrate on anything else.

Even at the height of Bangkok’s woes, about three weeks ago, it wasn’t clear how much longer until the water made its way out of people’s first floors and into the ocean. I went down to the Red Cross to volunteer. The chatter going on as we packed family-sized relief parcels suggested that maybe the need for the supplies wasn’t that urgent. What I suspect was really going on was that the extraordinary had begun to seem ordinary.

I really really really hope that Thailand doesn’t let itself get too used to this. If the weirdness we’ve been going through recently becomes the new normal, then we’re all in deep trouble. Today at least it seems safe to say that Bangkok’s 2011 flood response phase has given way to the recovery phase, and lessons-learned conversations are beginning to happen. Yet standing water still dominates the news and conversations, and there’s no guarantee that this year’s calamity won’t be repeated annually going forward.