Thai riverside restaurant finds silver lining in floods

 

But will they let me charge my cell phone?  

 

 

 

We are at 50cm below worry level this morning, level down 5cm on yesterday morning.

 

Maybe those water pushing boats are working ... 

 

This Ayutthaya fishing park is feeling the pinch !!

 

 

9 hours ago, Crossy said:

We are at 50cm below worry level this morning, level down 5cm on yesterday morning.

Maybe those water pushing boats are working ... 

 

Nope, since my last post the river has risen to 34cm below Worry Level, up 16cm in 5 hours and the highest it's been this time around.

 

According to Madam this is because of high tides in the gulf and should be down again later. Of course we will have similarly high tides until Tuesday although the lows will be very low.

 

Note that the peak tide this far inland is delayed by nearly 6 hours from the peak at the coast.

 

 

Level right now is 53cm below Worry Level, we are at local low tide.

 

Last local high tide saw us at 34cm below worry which flooded a significant chunk of the garden. This has left it impossible (ok, very, very squidgy) to access my normal picture-taking spot, so sorry no more photos of the neighbours green house.

 

Next local high will be at about mid-day.

 

Rice fields in front of MooBaan (Bang Yai, Nonthaburi) still significantly below road level...good sign. However I did get a view from the Purple Line train going over the Phra Nang Klao bridge that showed riverside areas quite swampy and a few cars seemingly swimming in the muck.

Local high tide, 32cm below worry.

 

Geese are enjoying the water, gai baan are catching fish! 

Local low tide and about 52cm below "Worry" ???? 

 

High last night was pretty similar to the night before, next local high at about 2PM.

 

Today, Sunday 10th Oct the river has reached it's highest level so far this year. The level is very similar to the peak in 2010 but still well below 2011.

 

I am a couple of km north of Nonthaburi Pier where the river is approx. 250M wide. For reference to the level compared to 2011, the water then peaked at about the neck of that lion like creature in the last photo which I estimate is about another 70-80cm higher than now

 

The water is on the way down now (11am) and the high sea tides start going down starting tomorrow so maybe we have passed the worst of it though, as I recall, in 2011 the peak level was reached on about the 25th October. Obviously it will depend on the amount of water being released upstream. As I understand, the water released from the Chainat dam takes about 3 days to reach Nonthaburi/Bangkok.

 

 

 

10 minutes ago, thedemon said:

The water is on the way down now (11am) and the high sea tides start going down starting tomorrow so maybe we have passed the worst of it though, as I recall, in 2011 the peak level was reached on about the 25th October. Obviously it will depend on the amount of water being released upstream. As I understand, the water released from the Chainat dam takes about 3 days to reach Nonthaburi/Bangkok.

 

We're about 30km (river distance) north of you, level is still climbing and is definitely the highest this year. I reckon we've still got a couple of hours before the actual peak.

 

I concur with the "distance to 2011".

 

We're at tidal max now (13.30), definitely the highest level yet, about 20cm below "Worry".

 

Garden is decidedly sodden.

 

 

 

Has the flood threat passed? No stories, headlines, or topics. Seems to have disappeared as a subject of worry. 

4 minutes ago, John Drake said:

Has the flood threat passed? No stories, headlines, or topics. Seems to have disappeared as a subject of worry. 

Just because they don't report it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

 

I saw a couple of news items on Saturday  one from "up north"  where a resident complained her house had been underwater for 2 weeks

another couple interviewed nearer to Bangkok ( Nonthaburi I think)

where resigned to their fate saying "what can you do if you live near the river"   and  "we are used to it as it  happens every year"

And another flood victim complaining that the government and army where speeding around in boats causing waves to  flood over the sandbag defences and flood her home ( repeatedly)

On 10/10/2021 at 1:39 PM, Crossy said:

We're at tidal max now (13.30), definitely the highest level yet, about 20cm below "Worry".

 

Garden is decidedly sodden.

 

 

 

Oh dear what a sodden nuisance. 

Today's max was well below yesterday's max.

 

More damp on its way down river but the worst of the tides have passed.

WARNING Will Robinson, WARNING!!

 

The lady who was helping Madam fill sandbags discovered that the flood water has leeches ???? 

 

Not nice!!

Pretty obvious where Madam's priorities lie!

 

> Six million Baht house pha!

Ten Baht bananas and the chickens need flood protection!

 

Yes, I told her not to tie the sandbags, but ...

 

I'm just a stupid, know-nothing farang!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We live in Mahasawat, Nonthaburi.  We are directly beside a klong feeding into the Mahasawat klong which is pretty big and which is about one km from here.  The klong is definitely up, about 1.2 metres down from breaking the bank.  Lots of rubbish and hyacinth floating on top.

 

We are about 60 - 80 minutes behind the high tide time.  Predicted high tide for today is 1001 so we won't see the effect until 1100 to 1120.  The peak high tide was two days ago and falling every day since then.

 

I hope it doesn't flood like 2011.  We kept the water mostly out by using silicone on door gaps, putting down thick plastic sheet and then sandbags.  I can't get that thick plastic now.

 

 

 

 

This afternoon's local high was around the same as yesterday, hopefully it will stay that way.

 

We are at local low right now, level is well down.

 

Next local high is at 5PM, will report back then.

Here we are around local high tide.

 

It's still too squidgy to get to my usual measuring points but the level is a good 20cm below the peak from Sunday ????

 

I'm not going to say it's over yet (puyai-baan said another week when he was on the speakers yesterday), but it's looking pretty good (famous last words!).

Here we are at Wat Phanan Choeng where the Chao Praya meets the Prasak ( scene of the tugboat sinking) and a popular place to make merit and feed a few fish !!

Apparently yesterday the level was 50 or 60 cm higher ( could see that on the markings on the floating platform rollers ) and water, along with a few inquisitive fish, made it over the wall into the temple grounds.

 

 

 

 

 

What is interesting is the barriers installed on the Wat/river border and how effective they would be ??

 

 

 

The concrete slabs have been removed and these hinged steel plates fitted recently. The rubber in rolls beside the plates fitted only when the plates are lifted I imagine.

 

It’s probably a 500 metre stretch of sidewalk that has been adapted, I certainly wouldn’t like the job of lifting these when/if required as they look pretty damn heavy !!

 

Nonthaburi Pier may be inaccessible after the rains this weekend. Something to watch. 
 

 

Sorry I've not posted for a few days, some of us have to work and we are actually back in the office. This coupled with the fact that it's dark, raining or both when I leave home and we've had a couple of late meetings meaning the same applied when I got home...

 

4PM Thursday ???? 

 

 

Anyway, here we are at local "fairly high" and 55cm below "Worry".

 

Even the garden is dry enough to squelch to the photo point ???? 

 

Update at local low tide. We are now 70cm below Worry Level ???? 

 

Next local high is at about 10PM, too dark then to check level but unless there's a tidal wave on it's way from the north we will be ok.

After the heavy rain last night and continuing rain up till now the drainage system is not handling it.  The klong has risen to a new height.  The road in front of our house has been flooded for 12 hours.

After a week or so of not doing anything significant the level whizzed up last evening, peaking around midnight at just above the previous highest level.

 

It flooded the drive and damped the car port floor.

 

Still 5cm below worry but worrying anyway.

 

We have a few days of high tides coinciding with the arrival of a pulse of water from the north.

 

Monitoring closely, next local high will be around mid-day, we are at a local low now and the level is well down on the peak.

 

Well we just scraped over the local high tide with about 5cm of freeboard below "Worry" level. Next high (late evening) is lower than this last one so unless there's a massive surge in river flow we should be OK.

 

Welcome to our newly installed Water Garden.

 

 

 

And a present from the local government.

 

Here we are around low water, to be honest it's not gone down as much as I hoped, but according to the tide table this is a sort of "mini-low", more of a dip in the high. The next high is lower than today's so with luck we should still be OK. I will be monitoring carfully.

 

Meanwhile we have an unusual garden visitor. There are a fair number of fish of various sizes in there so he had pretty good pickings.

 

On 10/11/2021 at 5:38 PM, Crossy said:

Pretty obvious where Madam's priorities lie!

 

> Six million Baht house pha!

Ten Baht bananas and the chickens need flood protection!

 

Yes, I told her not to tie the sandbags, but ...

 

I'm just a stupid, know-nothing farang!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would put a few blankets around the tree, just in case it's getting too cold.