On 13th October, we were one of the many neighborhoods that got flooded in Hyderabad. Apparently, we received record rains [Twitter].

Our home got inundated with two feet of flood water. The flooding lasted for ~3.5 hrs. After the water left, we had mud on the floors, shelves; drenched newspapers, books, flour, rice; damp walls. We are lucky to have upstairs and quickly moved there. Several homes weren’t so fortunate.

We are grateful to the generous neighbors who offered us hot food. We shared biscuits, plates, bedsheets with the other neighbours who were in the same situation as us.

Many cars wouldn’t start and needed help from technicians. After a scare from the deluge which drifted it from its parking place, the car seems to be OK. I called up the car maker’s service center for assistance and discovered that their workshop is flooded too.

The next day, most of the people were on road trying to understand how could this have happened. I joined them after the first round of house cleaning. A decade and a half ago, I knew almost everyone in the neighborhood. It has changed a lot since then. I discovered the houses that were constructed occupying the space for the culvert. Wonder how permissions were given.

The neighborhood sustained enough damage: impaired furniture, collapsed temple walls, damaged power transformers and transmission lines, felled house walls, seeping drainage water.

How

Areas that were in the junctions in our neighborhood got more inundated than the rest. As we discovered in the subsequent days, there are a few reasons.

1) We have a national deer park a block next to us. The park’s compound walls broke at two places resulting in a deluge of water for downstream houses.

2) Drainage that runs along the houses choked with excessive water and it entered the houses through outlets in bathrooms, kitchen.

3) A culvert runs through the center of the neighborhood (in some regions, separating from the next neighborhood). Walls of two adjacent houses to the culvert broke and fell in it blocking the path for flood water. Subsequently, water entered the houses. The last we know, about fifty houses got badly impacted.

Three days after the rains, we’re still grappling with the consequences although not as major compared to the ones living near the Musi river. Some houses had to deal with the drainage water for several days. With help from GHMC, they’re doing well now.

We too are in a better situation now: floors cleaned, clothes washed, water tanks and sump sanitized, shelves cleaned, dishes rinsed.

Action bias

I had interesting conversations with several people in recent days.

“How can water enter our homes? Colony association should have worked with the municipality to dig the roads deep before laying new ones”. Why didn’t you speak with the municipality about it when they were laying the roads? Surely, can we increase the maintenance from Rs. 100 to Rs. 500 for other planned works?

“Remove all speed breakers. Water wouldn’t have entered if they weren’t there.” With such inflows of water for 3 hrs, how would this have helped?

“We will lift our house by few feet to avoid this situation next time”. But this is once in a generation rain, why would you do that?

Emotionally charged people out on the roads just short of fist fighting come up with all sorts of suggestions. This reminded me of the concept action bias from the excellent book The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli. We feel urged to do something when faced with unseen circumstances.

As more neighborhoods spring up in the surroundings, it may be hard for the drainage to find the outlets. Newer constructions will be done in higher altitudes and downstream regions might bear the consequences. Let’s hope they will be better regulated.