The 88 flood....1

It was an ordinary typhoon day… I was thinking a piece and nice shift – when it is raining and windy, everybody stay in the house…but I was wrong..when I left the house at noon, the wind was darn strong and the rain was so heavy. I barely make it to the hospital. The news in the hospital was a little bit frightening… some of the nurse had taken leave as they could not make it out from the house…

In the night, the wind and rain did not get smaller. It was confusing, the typhoon was sweeping over the central part of Taiwan. We were at the outer skirt of the typhoon. But the weather forecast did warn the public about heavy rain in the southern part of Taiwan as the south west monsoon was harboring around the southern part.

The rain became more heavy but I did not have a good sleep as pt were pouring in despite the gust. I went to the car park to look at my car and I felt the strength of the wind… it almost tripped me over and me fall…

The morning was worst – 2 out of the 3 bridges that leading to north had been shut down. The LB bridge was always on the shut down list as the local area was always flooded during typhoon. The LB area is surrounded by fish bed …

This XP bridge I use regularly to work..half of the bridge was torn down and rebuild...

the XP bridge which I cross on a regular basis is classified as danger bridge years ago and when the river’s water level had risen to the naked steel rod (it is well below the supposed danger water level) it would be shut down. There was an incidence in the central part of Taiwan years ago when a bridge had fallen apart during a typhoon claiming life of a few car driver and passenger. So there was only 1 bridge left for me to get home. The locum doctor came a little bit late at 12:20pm and I started to rushed to the one and only bridge left (LLS bridge), rain heavier than yesterday. Unfortunately I was 20 mins too late – I was blocked by the police as the bridge was shut down 20 min before I hit the mark. I headed back to the hospital and slept at Lem’s quarters. I was depressed and did not get a good afternoon nap. I was thinking of reopening of the LLS bridge later on and enjoying a good father day’s dinner…

Well, my prayer did not come true.. I called the police duty center hourly hoping to get any good news of reopening of the bridge. I gave up at 6:00pm as the night was falling and rain was getting heavier then ever.

Our hospital superintendent and some of the staff physician had stayed back – a firepot dinner with bunch of good stuff but I was not in the mood of eating. I went to sleep by 10pm…The next day – the LLS bridge was reopened and I headed home by 8:30am… It was a shocking scenario for me when I drove pass the LLS bridge. I saw the river roaring itself passing under the bridge. A fall into the angry river would means fatal as even the best swimmer could not survive the current, further more there were rocks, logs and other materials which can give anyone an ICH/internal bleeding…

 

I was happy when I reached home… that was the worst I thought… but I was wrong again….The so call 88(Aug 8th) flood was much more severe then the 87 flood which hit Taiwan 50 years ago