All 50 Districts In Bangkok To Brace For Flood Tonight

[jsflynn603]

well that's it, then. The wellies are on, the noodles are on standby and over 1TB of downloaded movies/TV shows are ready to go !

I hope the electricity holds out for you.

Did you ever see the Twilight Zone, where the man who loved to read, after the nuclear devastation, arranged thousands of books to enjoy for many years..... and then broke his glasses!! argh!!

Stay safe and dry!! :-)

Haha! I remember that, wasn't he inside a bank vault when the nukes went off? Twilight Zone ruled!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I think the ATMs in BKK are a concern, not today, but in the days ahead, for a couple different potential reasons...

--flood waters alone could render them mechanically inoperable or unable to be refilled.

--the floods also could knock out the electricity either to the ATM machine itself or to the broader neighborhood.

The same issue re electricity might apply to the bank branches themselves... In the event of power outages -- meaning no computers and electronic systems -- I'm not sure how the bank branches would operate.

I do recall the few times in recent years that the power's been out in my neighborhood for a day or so, that all the 7/11s closed up... presumably because they couldn't operate their electronic cash registers... Dunno why they couldn't have rung up sales the old fashioned way.... but they didn't.

Maybe because the clerks can't do the necessary math computations to total purchases and give change, absent their electronic cash registers.

Anybody got abacuses to spare?

[femi fan]

I flew out of suvarnabhumi up to chiang mai early this morning, and had a window seat. Compared to doing this journey ten days ago i was a bit shocked at how much flooding there was immediately to the north of bkk and on it went for about half the distance up to chiang mai. It was everywhere eastwards, and most places westwards. The chao praya looked totally pregnant. Bkk simply looked completely normal so i was beginning to think the city'd be okay, but as we got north to don meuang and onwards from there, all i could see was basically floods for about 20 minutes of flying time. I would think it a miracle if bkk is able to keep the water out. It seemed looking below that bkk has done pretty well to keep dry this long.

Either way, good luck everyone, and i hope it goes quick, but with the huge area of central thailand under water, even that seems unlikely.

I'm not too sure that suvarnabhumi will keep dry either. I felt sorry for the airport staff this morning, telling me the flight was full of people trying to escape the city, and that their house was in the risky areas, and they had to go to work and leave their homes behind. It was the jumbo jet flight, and i didn't see an empty seat!

[tallfarang]

I asked this question on the where is it flooding forum but never received a reply. I live near Big c at sukhumvit Soi 26 and Rama 4. Fireworks have been going off every 15 minutes or so. Is this a warning? Anyone know?

[BuffaloRescue]

So atms working or not? Not really a place for more rumours, there is enough wrong info around as it is.

....

Unsure dont know. The wise choice would be to make sure you have enough cash at hand incase the ATM's are out of action or removed to prevent flood damage. ATMs are expensive kit. Why argue over the details about stuff you dont know about? Im just passing on what i heared. Personally i just withdrew 20k to keep with me incase this is true. Up to you.. or "whybother" lol

[djlest]

This whole thing is just a joke

everything they have warned so far never happens

and everything that does happen is manufactured - infact i wouldnt be suprised if this whole thing was man made

Nothing like a good old natural disaster, so we can borrow aid money, shut down everything and blame it on the gods.

Then will come the hero with a 400billion baht idea on how we can avoid it happening in the future

oh wait - someone already came up with that idea before it even started

who was that i wonder?

its all about making money - and now they have distracted the public enough so they can withdraw their ipads and credit cards for farmers and rice pledging.

genius! but evil.///

[bkkjames]

No, they are chasing away bad spirits. Is there a crematorium nearbye?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I asked this question on the where is it flooding forum but never received a reply. I live near Big c at sukhumvit Soi 26 and Rama 4. Fireworks have been going off every 15 minutes or so. Is this a warning? Anyone know?

I've been getting the same firecrackers in lower Suk the past hour or so.. I asked the Thai wife...she professed to not know either...

I'm guessing it's perhaps another kind of semi-religious demonstration aimed at scaring away the water (flood) gods.... But that's just a guess... It could also just be locals getting drunk on the last night before they expect to be soaked.

[Soutpeel]

This whole thing is just a joke

everything they have warned so far never happens

and everything that does happen is manufactured - infact i wouldnt be suprised if this whole thing was man made

Nothing like a good old natural disaster, so we can borrow aid money, shut down everything and blame it on the gods.

Then will come the hero with a 400billion baht idea on how we can avoid it happening in the future

oh wait - someone already came up with that idea before it even started

who was that i wonder?

its all about making money - and now they have distracted the public enough so they can withdraw their ipads and credit cards for farmers and rice pledging.

genius! but evil.///

Tin foil hat time me thinks.....you may not be able to find bottled water, but the OP appears to have found plenty of Chang....

[Luang]

I asked this question on the where is it flooding forum but never received a reply. I live near Big c at sukhumvit Soi 26 and Rama 4. Fireworks have been going off every 15 minutes or so. Is this a warning? Anyone know?

I've been getting the same firecrackers in lower Suk the past hour or so.. I asked the Thai wife...she professed to not know either...

I'm guessing it's perhaps another kind of semi-religious demonstration aimed at scaring away the water (flood) gods.... But that's just a guess... It could also just be locals getting drunk on the last night before they expect to be soaked.

IT's the Hindi Divali (light) Festival!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

No crematorium in my neighborhood, James...

But there is the Huntsman pub at the Landmark Hotel. Would that suffice as a substitute?

[StuartCrosby]

Hi I arrived in Bangkok a few days ago.

Staying near Lumphini Park, few of the shops round China town and Old town had built walls out side there shops about 2-3ft high

Hotel I'm at says that we wont be affected , not even bothered to put sand bags down.

I recon it wont be to bad just places near the river will be affected .

I do hear fire works going off every 10 mins or so. And a lot of shops have run out of bottled water.

I asked this question on the where is it flooding forum but never received a reply. I live near Big c at sukhumvit Soi 26 and Rama 4. Fireworks have been going off every 15 minutes or so. Is this a warning? Anyone know?

I've been getting the same firecrackers in lower Suk the past hour or so.. I asked the Thai wife...she professed to not know either...

I'm guessing it's perhaps another kind of semi-religious demonstration aimed at scaring away the water (flood) gods.... But that's just a guess... It could also just be locals getting drunk on the last night before they expect to be soaked.

[tallfarang]

Thanks for the responses. Im still dry so I am going to assume it s nothing to worry about.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

IT's the Hindi Divali (light) Festival!

WOW, and who ever said we don't learn things being around ThaiVisa???

http://www.diwalifestival.org/diwali-in-thailand.html

I still like my "getting drunk on their last night" idea...

[block2]

Batten down the hatches, get ready for the biggest floating markets of all time. Sure hope that the quality of the goods is high.

As A foreigner I was the trend setter in our village. We have had the sand bags in place for a week now, bedding in. The personal belongings have been up stairs for a week, and all the while we were being looked at by the neighbours wondering what we were doing. Some in the village still haven't done anything to secure their belongings, and have refused our assistance.

Best of luck for all. See what happens hey?

I'm in the Nakhon Sawan area we got hit at the beginning of the rainy season at the end of May and have been flooded 5 times since....our belongings have been raised since the end of May and are still raised...we lost quite a lot of our personal belongings in the 1st hit...reading what I read on here...the people in Bangkok have not got a clue what is coming there way...this water has travelled over 400 miles and they are just getting the front of it now..theres another 400 miles of water to come...wish you all luck....this is not funny this is DEADLY serious.

[jsflynn603]

Power in our condo went out as soon as the water arrived, intelligent planning put the power incomer and backup generator in the basement

Wifey is now supplying 4 apartments from her little 2kVA generator

Oh that is so sad....amazing in a city which floods!

Generators can be deadly, much more than you may know. In America there are always numerous deaths after hurricanes and winter blizzards due to generators. Opening windows, and using fans will not provide adequate ventilation. The tiniest generator (unless wind or water powered, of course) can and does kill. People are often lulled into a sense of security with fans, then a day or two goes by, everything seems ok. Then outside the wind changes subtly and the CO reverses and flows back into the house--the result is death. The tragic Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in 1977 where 167people died is not related to generators, and if you read about it, it is interesting, nobody talks about burns. The reason is that as far as I know, every person there died of CO poisoning. They'd escape the burning building, the fire a great distance from where most of the people were, walk out to the grassy areas, sit down, and die.

If you can, at least get a CO detector, remember that you can smell the exhaust which gives warning, but if the exhaust is pulled away from the building, but the wind causes a backflow, there may be no odor to warn you that CO is building up inside the condo; even very low levels can kill since it slowly builds up locking out hemoglobin in the blood with methemomoglbin which bonds to the red blood cells much stronger than the hemoglobin does and which will displace the hemoglobin which is the way our cells use oxygen. At low levels of CO, as in the case of a vented generator with a wind induced backflow there may be no symptoms at all, just an eventual tiredness that lulls people to a sleep from which they never wake up from. This happened to a neighbor of mine, not more than 200 meters away from where I lived. A couple, some years back, was found dead in their sleep with a small generator that was vented (improperly) to the outside.

This paper is worth reading to understand how even a vented generator can cause CO poisoning, perhaps it might be of some help.

http://fire.nist.gov.../PDF/b09009.pdf

This paper tells more about how winds and even breezes can affect the exhaust of a generator.

I remember the layout of my Chiang Mai condo, and knowing what I know, there simply is no way to safely vent a generator from any of the condos except possibly the top floor. It is quite possible too, that a generator, due to wind/breeze effect may not affect the condo where the generator is, but may create a lethal scenario for the neighbors to the left/right/up or down. Of course your condo set-up may differ and perhaps she has it properly vented.

[philw]

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

Sorry but this is nonsense. As a rough guide a tide takes about 6 hours 15 minutes to come in, then there is a period of slack water before it starts to go out, taking 6 hours 15 minutes to do so. About 30 minutes later the tide start to come back in. All ocean going ships carried copies of the tidetables of ports around the world so that the amount of water under the keel when in a channel entering a harbour could be calculated. I suppose that local conditions can now be ascertained via the Internet. There are some places in the world where the difference between high and low water is as much as 15 feet. There are periods when the Sun and the Moon exert influence simultaneously giving rise to higher and lower tides and these are called Spring Tides; when the magnetic forces operate against each other the variation between high and low tides decreases and these is known as Neap Tides.

http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/calendar/month/362.html

http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/locations/362.html

An incoming tide will push water upstream in fact tidal flows in the Mekhong Delta affect the Tonle Sap River and is responsible for the variation of water levels in the Great Lake. The Thames is tidal all the way up to Teddington. Southampton has 4 separate high water marks every 24 hours due to water flows around the Isle of Wight.

15 feet is a bit short.

Liverpool and points northwest can be 10+ metres range between high and low water.

Not sure but think Milford Haven has a bigger range and west coast Canada bigger again

[cowslip]

Why does the flood water always seem to come at night?

Interesting observation. Is it because sabotage or officials opening gates is done at night?

Whatever it is, it works and this morning I can see green returning to the edges of field in some areas in my province. So things do get better and in few sunny days citizens will be able to stretch their legs outside the relief camps..........

The problems in Bangkok have a silver lining, although difficult to appreciate as water rises. Good luck Bangkokians

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

As the water rises, the amount of height the water will drop as it flows to the sea reduces, and therefore the river at a certain point, stops flowing out to sea, and upstream for some distance, the rate of flow reduces out to sea, while the water coming from upstream keeps flowing at the same rate.

This results in the water being at its highest, in line with the high tide. At this time of year, due to (IIRC) the moon, the tides tend to be higher and the lows not as low. April/May is when you see super low tides in the Gulf of Thailand.

Also, which doesn't help, the normal rainy season monsoon which we saw yesterday, tends to fall in the late afternoon following the land heating up and pulling in a sea breeze and pushing clouds up with height resulting in rain etc etc; which is why EVERY YEAR Sept and Oct are the most prone to flooding, as it is a perfect storm of soaking soil, rainfall from the north, high tides and afternoon rain.

Bangkok can handle flash flooding; what it cannot handle is the amount of water coming south.

No conspiracy (unless you believe Jatuporn) it is pretty simple stuff.

Except there are TWO high tides per day?

don't think I'd like to go on a boat with you.

Edited October 26, 2011 by cowslip

[BuffaloRescue]

This whole thing is just a joke

everything they have warned so far never happens

and everything that does happen is manufactured - infact i wouldnt be suprised if this whole thing was man made

Nothing like a good old natural disaster, so we can borrow aid money, shut down everything and blame it on the gods.

Then will come the hero with a 400billion baht idea on how we can avoid it happening in the future

oh wait - someone already came up with that idea before it even started

who was that i wonder?

its all about making money - and now they have distracted the public enough so they can withdraw their ipads and credit cards for farmers and rice pledging.

genius! but evil.///

How about a paranoid chemtrails theory Thaksin has been spraying rain dust into the atmosphere to cause flooding

Edited October 26, 2011 by BuffaloRescue

[george]

Bangkok Governor advised residents of Don Muang, Bangplad to evacuate tonight; Lardprao, Wang Thong Larng on standby mode. Read on mobile: /The Nation

[metisdead]

Posts containing links to Bangkok Post news articles have been removed as per forum rule:

31) Members are not allowed to quote news articles or material from Bangkokpost.com or Phuketwan inside topics on Thaivisa.com. Posts from members containing quotes will be deleted from the forum. Members posting links referring back to the sites is also not allowed and will be deleted.

[philw]

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

Sorry but this is nonsense. As a rough guide a tide takes about 6 hours 15 minutes to come in, then there is a period of slack water before it starts to go out, taking 6 hours 15 minutes to do so. About 30 minutes later the tide start to come back in. All ocean going ships carried copies of the tidetables of ports around the world so that the amount of water under the keel when in a channel entering a harbour could be calculated. I suppose that local conditions can now be ascertained via the Internet. There are some places in the world where the difference between high and low water is as much as 15 feet. There are periods when the Sun and the Moon exert influence simultaneously giving rise to higher and lower tides and these are called Spring Tides; when the magnetic forces operate against each other the variation between high and low tides decreases and these is known as Neap Tides.

http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/calendar/month/362.html

http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/locations/362.html

An incoming tide will push water upstream in fact tidal flows in the Mekhong Delta affect the Tonle Sap River and is responsible for the variation of water levels in the Great Lake. The Thames is tidal all the way up to Teddington. Southampton has 4 separate high water marks every 24 hours due to water flows around the Isle of Wight.

15 feet is a bit short.

Liverpool and points northwest can be 10+ metres range between high and low water.

Not sure but think Milford Haven has a bigger range and west coast Canada bigger again

For SteveM

Souce HM Admiralty and the cycle is clear.

[ianguygil]

Here are the Thai tide tables. You can see that today there are 2 high tides, around 4 am today and just before 4 pm. It also shows the heights of the tides.

Good luck to everybody.

http://www.saltwater-dreaming.com/surfing-resources/thailand-tide-charts.htm

[SunsetT]

Why does the flood water always seem to come at night?

Interesting observation. Is it because sabotage or officials opening gates is done at night?

Whatever it is, it works and this morning I can see green returning to the edges of field in some areas in my province. So things do get better and in few sunny days citizens will be able to stretch their legs outside the relief camps..........

The problems in Bangkok have a silver lining, although difficult to appreciate as water rises. Good luck Bangkokians

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

As the water rises, the amount of height the water will drop as it flows to the sea reduces, and therefore the river at a certain point, stops flowing out to sea, and upstream for some distance, the rate of flow reduces out to sea, while the water coming from upstream keeps flowing at the same rate.

This results in the water being at its highest, in line with the high tide. At this time of year, due to (IIRC) the moon, the tides tend to be higher and the lows not as low. April/May is when you see super low tides in the Gulf of Thailand.

Also, which doesn't help, the normal rainy season monsoon which we saw yesterday, tends to fall in the late afternoon following the land heating up and pulling in a sea breeze and pushing clouds up with height resulting in rain etc etc; which is why EVERY YEAR Sept and Oct are the most prone to flooding, as it is a perfect storm of soaking soil, rainfall from the north, high tides and afternoon rain.

Bangkok can handle flash flooding; what it cannot handle is the amount of water coming south.

No conspiracy (unless you believe Jatuporn) it is pretty simple stuff.

What a crock of sh*t....................................U may be a Platinum member but u don't know what the hell u r talking about! These are very serious events having devastating effects on thousands of people's lives -and lives are being lost. I'm sorry to resort to insults but when u post so apparently knowledgable and confidently by saying that this is "Pretty Simple!", this must be the most apt description for u! For starters, high tides occur twice a day, though one is higher than the other. And further, it is not, as u say, about the same time every day at this time of year in Thailand, as everywhere in the World, the times of high tide change and advance everyday by about 30 mins depending on the changing position of the moon in it's 28 day cycle. I explained this in a post about 3 days ago, so I.m not going to repeat it but here is a sensibly posted link to British Navy tide tables which show the daily time changes and heights of the tides:

http://easytide.ukho...dictionLength=7

Someone else added that this data refers to where the river meets the Gulf of Thailand, so the heights r higher and times a bit earlier than they actually r upstream in the urban centre of Bangkok. Also these heights r variable depending on the strength and direction of the wind.

By all means, post your opinions and, in your case, delusions, but it it totally irresponsible to post these as fact, and in the current situation, could cost people their lives!!!

[BuffaloRescue]

Why does the flood water always seem to come at night?

Interesting observation. Is it because sabotage or officials opening gates is done at night?

Whatever it is, it works and this morning I can see green returning to the edges of field in some areas in my province. So things do get better and in few sunny days citizens will be able to stretch their legs outside the relief camps..........

The problems in Bangkok have a silver lining, although difficult to appreciate as water rises. Good luck Bangkokians

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

As the water rises, the amount of height the water will drop as it flows to the sea reduces, and therefore the river at a certain point, stops flowing out to sea, and upstream for some distance, the rate of flow reduces out to sea, while the water coming from upstream keeps flowing at the same rate.

This results in the water being at its highest, in line with the high tide. At this time of year, due to (IIRC) the moon, the tides tend to be higher and the lows not as low. April/May is when you see super low tides in the Gulf of Thailand.

Also, which doesn't help, the normal rainy season monsoon which we saw yesterday, tends to fall in the late afternoon following the land heating up and pulling in a sea breeze and pushing clouds up with height resulting in rain etc etc; which is why EVERY YEAR Sept and Oct are the most prone to flooding, as it is a perfect storm of soaking soil, rainfall from the north, high tides and afternoon rain.

Bangkok can handle flash flooding; what it cannot handle is the amount of water coming south.

No conspiracy (unless you believe Jatuporn) it is pretty simple stuff.

Except there are TWO high tides per day?

don't think I'd like to go on a boat with you.

Im sure hes a certified round the world yacht racer and owns a 150 metre yacht in the Bahamas. Or maybe just another certified nutter

[roamer]

Oh well at least this just posted in the news thread could bring a bit of peace to to board.

URGENT:

CAT Telecom, the main international internet gateway braces for flooding: Phone and internet connections could be disrupted due to possible electric failure because of flooding.

-- Thai PBS 20:45

[jsflynn603]

Sorry but this will be a bore(ing) post....

To understand the effect, albeit in an extreme way, on how an incoming tide can affect inland waters take a peek at this video:

This is extreme because the funnel shaped topology of this harbor/river intensifies the effect of the incoming tide and amplifies it. Here surfers "ride" the tidal "bore" (wave) inland for 10 kilometers!

Jump to about two minutes and 37 seconds to see the wave. Once the wave has passed, the water level of the river behind the wave remains 1-2 meters higher than it was. Between Nova Scotia and the New Brunswick, Canada, there is a bore, but changes have reduced it to only a few feet.

Edited October 26, 2011 by jsflynn603

[serenitynow]

Pretty simple. High tides in Thailand occur once per day, and at this time of year occur in the late afternoon; around 4.50pm today.

Sorry but this is nonsense. As a rough guide a tide takes about 6 hours 15 minutes to come in, then there is a period of slack water before it starts to go out, taking 6 hours 15 minutes to do so. About 30 minutes later the tide start to come back in. All ocean going ships carried copies of the tidetables of ports around the world so that the amount of water under the keel when in a channel entering a harbour could be calculated. I suppose that local conditions can now be ascertained via the Internet. There are some places in the world where the difference between high and low water is as much as 15 feet. There are periods when the Sun and the Moon exert influence simultaneously giving rise to higher and lower tides and these are called Spring Tides; when the magnetic forces operate against each other the variation between high and low tides decreases and these is known as Neap Tides.

http://tides.mobileg.../month/362.html

http://tides.mobileg...ations/362.html

An incoming tide will push water upstream in fact tidal flows in the Mekhong Delta affect the Tonle Sap River and is responsible for the variation of water levels in the Great Lake. The Thames is tidal all the way up to Teddington. Southampton has 4 separate high water marks every 24 hours due to water flows around the Isle of Wight.

15 feet is a bit short.

Liverpool and points northwest can be 10+ metres range between high and low water.

Not sure but think Milford Haven has a bigger range and west coast Canada bigger again

For SteveM

Souce HM Admiralty and the cycle is clear.

I think your graph makes Steve's point. Thailand has a mixture of both diurnal and semidiurnal tides.

Edited October 26, 2011 by serenitynow

[serenitynow]

Meanwhile the county is screwed and there should be more important things to do than discuss sodding tide tables.

Any ideas how we should all be helping ??

I think Steve's point was that there is only one high tide per day THAT MATTERS and that presently it is falling in late afternoon. As for how we can help, I currently have 6 house guests affected by the flooding, have donated more money than I imagine most here make per month, intend to donate more (probably rice), when it is over, and in addition I have my own flood damage to repair. As for others, my suggestion is put yourselves in the shoes of those affected and do whatever you can. My only other piece of advice is that if you give to a charity, which I mostly do not, be well familiar with their history.

[rubl]

From Thailand Live Wednesday:

Posted 7 minutes ago (probably 21:45)

FROC asks BKK residents to move out to the provinces as evacuation centers have been set up due to possible flooding of capital tonight/TAN_Network

Interesting, imagine the chaos if all 10 (12?) million Bangkok citizens decided to follow this advice