Huge Flood In Pattaya Today

[ozimoron]

Just now, thaibeachlovers said:

Then they should be in fours.

Perhaps 4 feet is a bit excessive, but certainly larger than 1 foot, given the amount of water that falls in a tropical storm. Obviously they can't do the job, given the floods.

However, did Beach Rd flood or was it just Buakhao?

No roads flooded last night. There may have been temporary surface water but I can't confirm that. 09:00 this morning all dry and drains more or less empty.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 minutes ago, carlyai said:

Sounds good and workable. 

But then I wonder about their hydraulic engineers who plan road drainage grates on road crests.

You think they are actually qualified hydraulic engineers? They, IMO, have no clue about city planning, so why would they know about drains, though they probably do understand if they put small ones in this year, they can dig the road up and put bigger ones in next- lots and lots of lovely you know what.

[ozimoron]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Then they should be in fours.

Perhaps 4 feet is a bit excessive, but certainly larger than 1 foot, given the amount of water that falls in a tropical storm. Obviously they can't do the job, given the floods.

However, did Beach Rd flood or was it just Buakhao?

How obviously can't they do the job? Any evidence at all? Even anecdotal? I walked all down soi buahkhaow and much of road 2 and saw no evidence of flooding at 09:00 this morning.

 

Any flooding last night was brief because the soi drains are quite small and would take a little time to empty. Some, like in soi pothole have been upgraded recently.

Edited September 5, 2022 by ozimoron

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

No roads flooded last night. There may have been temporary surface water but I can't confirm that. 09:00 this morning all dry and drains more or less empty.

When I was living on it, even the lowest parts of Buakhao drained out eventually. The pipes were just not large enough to take the amount of water that fell, though it could have been they were blocked by sand etc.

[ozimoron]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You think they are actually qualified hydraulic engineers? They, IMO, have no clue about city planning, so why would they know about drains, though they probably do understand if they put small ones in this year, they can dig the road up and put bigger ones in next- lots and lots of lovely you know what.

Yes, I do. It was a large engineering project that took about 2 years to complete. These drains aren't going to be dug up for a long time. It's a long term solution.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

When I was living on it, even the lowest parts of Buakhao drained out eventually. The pipes were just not large enough to take the amount of water that fell, though it could have been they were blocked by sand etc.

There's been a lot of work done on drainage in the last three years.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

How obviously can't they do the job? Any evidence at all? Even anecdotal? I walked all down soi buahkhaow and much of road 2 and saw no evidence of flooding at 09:00 this morning.

 

Any flooding last night was brief because the soi drains are quite small and would take a little time to empty. Some, like in soi pothole have been upgraded recently.

If there is a flood that is in buildings it is surely obvious they can't do the job. Planning should be for the worst case scenario, not the average, but planning seems to be absent from city hall in my experience of living in Pattaya.

I'm well aquainted with Pattaya floods as I lived just off Buakhao. The soi flooded regularly.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If there is a flood that is in buildings it is surely obvious they can't do the job. Planning should be for the worst case scenario, not the average, but planning seems to be absent from city hall in my experience of living in Pattaya.

I'm well aquainted with Pattaya floods as I lived just off Buakhao. The soi flooded regularly.

all I can say is the major drainage works they just completed are not and can't be ineffectual. That some old bar areas flood temporarily is not surprise. They were built on old tidal floodplains, as was the whole length of Jomtien.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

There's been a lot of work done on drainage in the last three years.

There has been a lot of work on drainage for as long as I'd been going to Pattaya. In the 90s they dug up Beach Rd 2 or 3 times to put in bigger pipes. The last version did seem to work till they widened the road and apparently forgot to connect the road side drains to the big pipes and it flooded in a normal rain shower.

[Olmate]

2 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

There's been a lot of work done on drainage in the last three years.

No, the NZ Xxpat has a better view of Patts.than  we do????

[thaibeachlovers]

Just now, ozimoron said:

all I can say is the major drainage works they just completed are not and can't be ineffectual. That some old bar areas flood temporarily is not surprise. They were built on old tidal floodplains, as was the whole length of Jomtien.

??????

If it floods they ain't doing the job, IMO.

As I understand it the present Beach Rd was built on reclaimed land.

[bkk6060]

Lots of dumb desperate alcoholics who don't have any sense and cannot miss a night at the bar and stay out of a flood,  

Edited September 5, 2022 by bkk6060

[ozimoron]

Just now, thaibeachlovers said:

??????

If it floods they ain't doing the job, IMO.

As I understand it the present Beach Rd was built on reclaimed land.

No. Unless it was before WW2. I can't imagine why they'd want to reclaim 2 miles along a beach to build a road.

[thaibeachlovers]

Just now, bkk6060 said:

Lots of dumb desperate alcoholics who don't have any sense and cannot miss a night at the bar.

You think they should stay in and watch tv instead?

 

Some years ago wading to the bar in Bkk was not unusual. Then they put in some big pumps along the river and solved that problem.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

No. Unless it was before WW2. I can't imagine why they'd want to reclaim 2 miles along a beach to build a road.

555555555555555

It was a fishing village till Vietnam war.

Perhaps they had to reclaim the land because the land side was owned land with buildings, and not enough space for a proper road along the beach.

[Walker88]

"Pipes that run downhill"

 

Roman generals were often shipped to outlying areas after major military victories, lest their popularity allow them to overthrow the emperor. Around 40AD one general was sent to Gaul (France) to run the city of Nimes. Looking for something to do, he decided to build baths in the city he commanded, plus supply water to homes. That required water sourced from a distance. He had an aqueduct designed to carry water from the source 31 miles to his city. At one point the aqueduct crossed the Gard River. A bridge was designed to cross the river and serve as the aqueduct. No mortar was used in the construction, and cement would not exist for another 18 or so centuries. The bridge is, as one would expect, entirely stone. Some of the stones are several meters in length, width and thickness and weigh many tons. It's a story in itself how the builders lifted these precisely cut blocks dozens of meters up to build the structure. What is more amazing is that since electric pumps were centuries away, only gravity could be the 'pump' that allowed the water to flow. The Pont du Gard measures something like 900 feet across (and stands 50 meters or about 160 feet high). What is astonishing is that the grade from one end of the bridge to the other is about minus 1.5 cm, 3/5s of an inch. That is quite precise, and it allowed some 8.8 million gallons of water a day to flow across the bridge, which still stands today.

 

Pattaya sits on a major gulf. If the Romans could figure out how to move water downhill for 31 miles in 40AD, surely the leaders of Pattaya ought to be able to figure how to lay pipes to carry water a few kilometers in 2022, even if some of greater Pattaya is below sea level.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Walker88

[ozimoron]

Just now, thaibeachlovers said:

You think they should stay in and watch tv instead?

 

Some years ago wading to the bar in Bkk was not unusual. Then they put in some big pumps along the river and solved that problem.

well, that's where they got the idea then.

[BangkokAlan]

Drainage is full of plastic bags and grease from street vendors cooking.

[ozimoron]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

555555555555555

It was a fishing village till Vietnam war.

Perhaps they had to reclaim the land because the land side was owned land with buildings, and not enough space for a proper road along the beach.

They haven't reclaimed any of Beach Rd since the early 80's that I can say for sure. I have seen photos of it in the sixties and it looked the same then too. Undeveloped areas like between soi honey and beach road were mainly old coconut plantations then so they hadn't been reclaimed in many years. I do recall new ground in a beer bar area just north of Pattaya North Rd was was the northern perimeter of Pattaya back then. The main bus station was also at the junction of Road 2 and P North then. Jomtien was all tidal salt flats then except for a hotel each end.

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

No. Unless it was before WW2. I can't imagine why they'd want to reclaim 2 miles along a beach to build a road.

Here's a photo from Google images apparently of Pattaya in the 60s or 70s. Do you see enough land between the buildings and the beach for the road of today? I don't.

 

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, BangkokAlan said:

Drainage is full of plastic bags and grease from street vendors cooking.

They weren't. I looked in many of them this morning. They were mainly empty. There was some rubbish but most of it obviously flows out to sea.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

They haven't reclaimed any of Beach Rd since the early 80's that I can say for sure. I have seen photos of it in the sixties and it looked the same then too. Undeveloped areas like between soi honey and beach road were mainly old coconut plantations then so they hadn't been reclaimed in many years. I do recall new ground in a beer bar area just north of Pattaya North Rd was was the northern perimeter of Pattaya back then. The main bus station was also at the junction of Road 2 and P North then. Jomtien was all tidal salt flats then except for a hotel each end.

Probably before the 80s. Pattaya was growing in the 70s.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Here's a photo from Google images apparently of Pattaya in the 60s or 70s. Do you see enough land between the buildings and the beach for the road of today? I don't.

 

Hard to tell. All I'm saying is that it must have been long ago. Maybe they did widen it sometime but I've never heard stories of it happening. I came here many times in the 80's then there was a period of 24 years that I never came to Pattaya from the 90's until about 5 or 6 years ago. The road seems the same now as then. Maybe the walking promenade was widened but I doubt much more than that, it seems the same only better paved. None of the area inland from that road was reclaimed. Lots are routinely built up but that's not reclaimed.

[Photoguy21]

Same every year in Pattaya. Instead of the projects they approve be better to approve projects that will actually give benefit.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

Hard to tell. All I'm saying is that it must have been long ago. Maybe they did widen it sometime but I've never heard stories of it happening. I came here many times in the 80's then there was a period of 24 years that I never came to Pattaya from the 90's until about 5 or 6 years ago. The road seems the same now as then. Maybe the walking promenade was widened but I doubt much more than that, it seems the same only better paved. None of the area inland from that road was reclaimed. Lots are routinely built up but that's not reclaimed.

I read it way back and can't remember what publication it was in. The people that would know have likely passed away by now.

 

Does it really matter anyway, It was just a remark of no significance? "Nuff said on that I think. Now back to the drains of today.

[voulez vous]

46 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Yes, I do. It was a large engineering project that took about 2 years to complete. These drains aren't going to be dug up for a long time. It's a long term solution.

How long before that super-fast train start whizzing the farmers from Nong Khai to Pattaya in under an hour?

 

39 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

There has been a lot of work on drainage for as long as I'd been going to Pattaya. In the 90s they dug up Beach Rd 2 or 3 times to put in bigger pipes. The last version did seem to work till they widened the road and apparently forgot to connect the road side drains to the big pipes and it flooded in a normal rain shower.

Surely one of the great things about Thailand is the incompetence. They are behind the curve on many things. But it's what makes it so appealing for many to be here.

Edited September 5, 2022 by voulez vous
changed 'some' into 'many'

[ozimoron]

3 minutes ago, voulez vous said:

How long before that super-fast train start whizzing the farmers from Nong Khai to Pattaya in under an hour?

 

Surely one of the great things about Thailand is their incompetence. They are behind the curve on many things. But it's what makes it so appealing for some to be here.

Thais and the Khmers were world leaders in urban drainage and irrigation for centuries. The xenophobic notion that they are behind the curve really isn't true. All they lack is the GDP of more developed nations.

[blackshadow]

5 hours ago, jacko45k said:

When did this happen? 

I was in town much of the morning but obviously this happened at night...

Didn't see heavy rain where I am out of town.

same here in jomtien......

[John Drake]

11 hours ago, juiso said:

Many sexy girls in the flooded streets of Pattaya

Just watched the first minute and it mostly seemed to consist of broken down balding old potbellies.

[voulez vous]

16 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Thais and the Khmers were world leaders in urban drainage and irrigation for centuries. The xenophobic notion that they are behind the curve really isn't true. All they lack is the GDP of more developed nations.

Can say that is news to me about urban drainage and irrigation. Thanks. As for the GDP; Thailand is awash with money. Like so many countries it is poorly distributed.

 

Anyhow; when the causeway is built from Sattahip to Hua Hin, and the water drained, the flooding in Pattaya should cease.