Da Nang gets its ass kicked by heavy rains

It wasn't that long ago that the city for days warned us about a Super Typhoon that was going to rock the coastline. People went well above and beyond the call of duty as far as protecting their homes and businesses was concerned including many businesses shutting entirely. My own building made rather extreme choices about how to protect itself including draining the rooftop pool for some reason and also creating a rather bizarre contraption to secure the front glass doors but not securing the 40 windows that are in the same room.

The government also enforced an 8pm curfew the night the Super Typhoon was meant to hit the coast. Then when the typhoon hit, almost nothing happened. I slept through all of it and this says a lot about how non-super the Super Typhoon actually was because my dog is super-sensitive to weather.

Fast forward a few weeks and there was another storm coming and the city responded to this upcoming storm by doing almost nothing to prepare for it. While the winds were nothing to get excited about, the rainfall was some of the heaviest I have ever seen.

It wasn't winds that caused any damage but rather, the huge amounts of water that all went rushing towards the presumably inadequate drainage systems all at once. They were overwhelmed and flowed over the street and then quickly eroded the beaches that are near these gigantic pipes. The boardwalk was completely wiped out in places and I think that there is at least some merit to criticism about poor craftmanship.

Without question this is the worst I have seen it, but it isn't the first time it has happened in the 2.5 years that I have been here. On a somewhat regular basis the boardwalks collapses due to erosion yet this total collapse would indicate that it was probably rebuilt in exactly the same fashion that it was put there in the first place.

There was also a tremendous amount of sea debris that was deposited on the beach and this was just a huge mess that is going to take a while to clean up.

I do find it a bit amusing that since the damage happened on a weekend, the government brought construction equipment down there to deal with it but didn't start working on it until Monday. I guess those guys need some time off as well and since it is low tourism season right now anyway, what's the rush?

_{This sat in the same place for the entire weekend}

When the entire area's drainage got hit with so much water all at once, not only did it stop flowing to the sea but it also completely overwhelmed the entire drainage network for this part of the city and I would guess, others as well. It is quite common in this part of the city for condos to have underground parking garages and when the drainage failed, it backwashed into everyone's garages.

This is a poor photo due to the limitations on my phone but if you look closely you can see that there is a huge amount of water down there. This particular underground footpath had pull-down doors and sandbags arranged around both entrances. None of that matter when the water comes from the pipes below the structures.

Thankfully, the owner of my condo had the foresight to move all the motorbikes and most of the other belongings out of the basement garage and it is a good thing that they did because we were dealing with around 8 feet of water in the basement that also ended up destroying the door between it and the stairwell. We went without power for a full day because all of the electrical controls are stored down there as well. In retrospect, putting the electrical controls, as well as the backup generator, at the lowest point in the building might not be the best idea for an area that is prone to flooding.

The city has finally dried out now, but the problem remains that this area, which has been going skyward for quite a few years now, is built primarily on sand and sand moves when there is a bunch of water pushing on it. Hopefully the 20 story buildings that are all on the beach have seriously long stabilizing beams to withstand the land around it suddenly not being there anymore. I would like to think that this is a standard engineering process.

I'll end this the way I usually do, with a cute picture of Nadi

She had several days of indoor time as I was not going to allow her to traverse the wet streets below since she is a "low rider" she always bring the water back with her and that results in the need for her 2nd least favorite thing: A bath.