Floods

[Robby nz]

We live directly across the road from the CP River and at present the river is at least 1.5m above road level.

The water is held back by a retaining wall with a walkway on the road side.

The water is at present a little over 80cm below the top of the wall.

Yesterday morning just on daylight the water broke through under the wall about a KM down the road.

I arrived there probably only a few minutes after it happened to see a fountain of water coming up from the road.

Locals had arrived but there wasn’t anything they could do at that stage.

Someone must have called the authorities for trucks with sandbags and men started arriving followed shortly by an army bus and truck full of soldiers.

They worked most of the day, sometimes up to their chests in water.

The deputy Governor was there directing operations and in the afternoon the PM turned up.

The leak is now contained with hundreds of thousands of sand bags.

If it had continued we would have been inundated and potentially the whole town.

These people did a fantastic job under poor conditions, right down to those who kept a supply of food and water going for those working.

But what a clean up there will be after this is all over.

There are millions of sandbags just around our little town, some piled well over 2M high.

And this isn’t the worst hit area.

There will need to be many billions spent rehabilitating the country after this.

The Thailand bashers should get out and see how well things do work around this country.

Tried to attach some photos but wont do it, will try again later