Flooding is inevitable: cycling along the river to assess the situation.

The news on flash floods in several northern provinces made me very worried about the possibility of flooding in this small town. So, I went cycling along the river to check out the level of water. The weather was warm and dry making cycling quite pleasant though I found the sunshine a bit too strong for late afternoon.

A few months ago, I had a flash of feeling about the adverse situation of a small town in the north. I read online news about a famous CEO of a bank who retired to a small northern town called Nan. It’s a lovely and quiet place surrounded by mountains. Suddenly I felt the urge to tell him about my psychic flash of message. But I couldn’t do that; the last time I frightened him when I sent a card with a ‘poem’ reflecting the predicaments. I was very disappointed when he had his secretary calling me at work to ask me why I sent him such a card. Instead of thanking me , he thought I might have been a stalker.

Many years ago, I was invited to attend a very interesting meeting and to listen to top businessmen. This prestigious banker gave a talk on the economy and his past efforts in trying to influence the government on public policies. I could pick up his inner thoughts and feeling of disappointment. He seemed to be under a lot of stress and he had secrets which he couldn’t share with a tube. That’s why I sent him a sympathy card to show some support. Shortly after that, he retired from his position and lived a quiet lifestyle far away from limelight. The town he lived in has been inundated with flash floods.

I cycled along the riverfront to observe the level of rising water. I stopped by the local resort to see if it’s been affected by floods. The staff at the resort told me the river has risen since the early morning as the Chinese released water from the big dam above Laos. This forced Laos to release more water from the dams downstream. The water level has increased by over seven meters in one night.

Therefore, the currents were very strong and furious with red brownish colour. Fishermen were too afraid to go out fishing as their long boats could be swept away and swallowed by the currents. The river looked very beautiful and powerful as she seemed to have increased in her size and was gleaming in extra strength. The soft and malleable water could suddenly showed so much force which could frighten us with flash floods and angry currents which could sweep away cars abd houses.

I had the feeling that the river would soon overflow the riverbank and spread into the fields. I knew there would be widespread flooding but I didn’t know whether the flooding would be short lived or prolonged. I hoped that it would be brief and the water level would recede very fast. We didn’t experience severe flooding for almost ten years. The last time, three dams broke in China causing lots of damages and havocs to all communities along the river in four countries.

During the flooding disaster, my banana groves and fruit orchards were under two meters of water for three weeks. We lost many fruit trees and suffered lots of damages. So, most people around here were quite concerned that all these twenty dams wouldn’t be releasing too much water at the same time. It seemed people responsible for managing water and dams failed in effective water management. It’s always the same problem everywhere; people who looked after the dams would be stingy in releasing water downstream in summer months. They were afraid that they would have enough water for their own country in dry seasons.

So, they were caught with much less capacity of the dams for coping with monsoon rains. Then, in panic they rushed to release too much water as they wanted to save these dams from bursting. I had a bad feeling since last summer as the river here was reduced to a small canal. Villagers and fishermen suffered from man made drought. Most civil servants working in water department and dam management were not the brightest or most efficient people as these jobs weren’t very well paid. They were mostly very conservative and rule abiding people without the capacity to have insights or exercise lateral thinking.

Most of all, these civil servants played safe and followed instructions from higher authority. So, they didn’t have the need to observe irregular weather patterns or the possibility of excess monsoon storms which could change the volume of rainfall. The government management system rarely put the right man on the right job. The internal politics, conventional ethos and cronyism in government meant that sweet talkers and yes-men would be in positions of authority and decision making. All the bright and high potential people would be recruited by private sector companies with merit systems and high compensations.

Bedsides having less superior staff in the civil service, corruptions and abuses of authority added to the sufferings of ordinary people when dealing with government officials. There were good and hard working civil servants around but they were hidden in the background and forbidden to do anything smarter than their superiors. I have become very fed up with these parasitic civil servants and has no respect for them. I had to restraining myself when dealing with power hungry officers at the railway station. My anger from observing the mess and damages these intellectually handicapped civil servants was ready to explode sometimes.

I had no idea that cycling along the river observing the possibility of flooding would stir up lots of bad feelings against civil servants in my country. I reckoned those people in the northern provinces whose houses and properties were already under flooding would have been fuming since the last two days. The officials gave no warning of flooding and didn’t tell people to move their belongings and animals to higher places. The whole commercial district in Chiengrai, Prae, Nan were under two meters of water. Farm animals were lost, people and children were stranded on the roof waiting for help.

The officials didn’t work during weekends and beyond office hours! Without the top officials’ orders, things moved very slowly. So, the familiar charitable organisations took initiative to reach people in faraway areas. These people were without food and water for two days. As I thought, the King organised a food truck to traxh the most affected province. The special truck was a mobile kitchen that cook food for distributing to hungry people. Once the civil servants saw the King’s proactive effort at the frontline, civil servants and politicians started to make their moves.

That’s probably why external efforts have been trying to overthrow the monarchy and establish a new ‘communist’ government in the country. The monarchy had played a quiet role in keeping the cohesion and stability in the country. The previous King Rama IX was the key hero in solving water management problems in Thailand. He would trek on mountains and forests to map out the bigger plans for building a networks of dams to provide water to far away provinces.

These projects had brought both water and electricity to thd poor rural areas of Thailand. That’s probably why most poor villagers have portraits of the monarchy in their houses. I had met an old man who could tell me the year when the King brought fresh water supply and electricity into his village. Only then did I realise I had taken things for granted. Millions of poor people were without running water and electricity for most of their lives some fifty years ago.

I am afraid that foreign sponsored politicians and NGOs have been recruited and schooled abroad to carry out plans to change our social structures towards socialist or communist systems of control. The positive impact would be more foreign ‘investment’ money would flow towards logistics companies and event organisers for future protests. These would give the relevant government officials some exercise for their grey matters. The negative effect would be the divisions within our society, the opportunity costs, and the damages during violent confrontations.

This river could easily make or break the livelihoods of peoples in four countries. Some analysts had predicted that countries would be fighting for water in the future. But the future is full of uncertainty and fluctuations of events. Perhaps things or priorities might change with time. So, we might have more concern about nuclear fall out and its impact of food and water. I hope that we would have new and easy way to deal with radioactive materials so that survival would be possible in time of radiation. I hope and pray that the nuclear incident would be very limited and short lived. My psychic feeling has not been very optimistic about the future, so I hope people would start making contingency plans.

Floodings in the northern provinces.
Source

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.