Flooded Street

Today it was pouring, but this time I could definitely tell the potential that monsoon season has. For starters, this morning on the way to work many of the gutters had water up to the top or were even overflowing. Even the gutter outside of the place I live the water was up to the top. There were fields that were completely under water. There were parking lots completely under water. There was one street that they have been working on for some time now. It was scary to drive over it. It looks like they are working on putting in gutters. They also have these cement cubes that usually go at the corners of streets instead of having the gutter come to a point and go down the next side of the street. Anyway this one has sunk down into the ground where the ground around it has washed away. They have put new asphalt down on the street where they were doing work under the street, but it doesn't look very stable either. I am expecting that this street is going to get much worse and they are going to have to do many repairs to the work that was left half done. Many streets don't have gutters on them so the water just collects on the road and floods it. One would think after years and years of monsoons that they would figure out a way to improve the gutter systems on the roofs of houses and for streets. The road in front of the school were I teach was flooded. Across the road is a car place and next to that is the MPK stalls where we get our lunch. The entire parking lot was flooded. I watched a couple of ladies holding umbrellas in one hand and their food in the other cross backing over to the side of the street my school is on with their pant legs rolled up and the water up to mid calf. Cars that drove down the street sprayed water really high in the air.


There were only two cars in the parking lot in front of the food stalls. The one vehicle the wheels were almost completely covered with water. I asked our Director of Studies, how do we get food with the road like this? He replied that one person (one of the people on duty) gets all the food orders and goes across to get all the food. That person will get wet. I thought to myself that I am not looking forward to the day when it is my turn to wade across the street to get the food. Sure, I will roll up my pant legs and wear flip flops that I bought to wear on days like this when I am outside so as not to ruin my shoes, but I am sure that the water is not clean. I will probably buy a cheap towel to keep at school to wipe my legs with when I return. My Mom also left me some body cleansing sheets that I can probably use to sort of wash my legs. I would think that this street has probably flooded before and if it has done it for several years that they would decide to add a gutter and drain, so that water doesn't continue to build up. The parking lot in front of the stalls is mostly gravel. It was paved at one point but there are huge pot holes and very little concrete left. I don't know much about how street works get decided on or how they handle the money for doing repairs, new streets, etc. So maybe they are limited on improving the roads or maybe they are just so used to it that they don't really think about it.