I would be crying now if my clinic had been on the basement of Lucky Plaza. The flood 2 weeks ago would have devasted my dental unit and $50,000 xray machine. Yes, there was a devastating flood at Orchard Road that day. I arrived in the afternoon, but several broken down vehicles were still stranded on the road, waiting to be towed away. At the basement of Lucky Plaza, was a familiar sight. Water was ankle deep (I was told it went up to knee deep earlier) and shopkeepers were frantically blocking off their shops with planks and shovelling water away from their goods with everything they had. Just next door at Tong Building (the Rolex building), the basement carpark was full of submerged cars. Boy was I glad to be on Level 5.
Later in the afternoon, after most of the flood waters on the main road have subsided, I was walking on muddy ground outside Takashimaya. The basement carpark at Tong Building continued to hold its submerged cars while roaring trucks I’ve never seen before siphoned desperately. The underpass between Takashimaya and Lucky Plaza remained closed and many people were forced to run across the road.
Yes, it was a devastating flood. My heart goes out to the shopkeepers and the owners of the submerged cars. Apparently, this flood (which is not the first in Orchard Road which I’ve seen) was caused by a large monsoon drain being choked by the carcass of an animal called a scapegoat.
Wait a minute. There’s no scapegoat here and I’m surprised. Not only was there no scapegoat, we were told that ensuring zero floods would mean building some very expensive huge monsoon drains which would be empty most of the time. Sounds a bit like parade squares in army camps.
OK, National Day is next month. I’d leave NDP to the youngsters. For me, I’ll probably take a short trip to Indonesia and climb a volcano. In line with promoting environmental friendliness, I heard that a couple of local designers have been engaged to design stylish totes with the NDP theme. The design below sums it all up.
Shows what kind of boring, unimaginative and restricted dreams we can have in Singapore. So much for a flood of creativity.
