More Flood!
The flooding in our area went from bad to worse. Swollen rivers poured into the lake from every direction, and the lake overflowed its banks and submerged most of downtown. Out of concern for our safety, our Embassy arranged for us to be evacuated by the Indian military, along with a group of other foreigners. As a result, I’m writing this from a guest house in Delhi.
Better a boat than a car
For many of us, one of the things that turned this flood into a crisis was the complete lack of news or communications. Shortly after I posted my last blog entry, the city lost internet and phone service, as well as electricity. From then on we got almost no “hard” news about what was happening outside our neighborhood. There were rumors of catastrophic flooding, bridges under water, and people trapped on housetops, but no one knew the truth. Many of our neighbors had family members living near the lake, but without phone service, they couldn’t get in contact to find out whether they were safe. We couldn’t even get in touch with our co-workers without driving to their house—and we had to take a long, roundabout way to bypass the flooded lakeshore. We felt anxious and uncertain; it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so cut off from the rest of the world.
Without news or communications, the Embassy’s recommendation to evacuate came as a surprise. It turned out to be a long, somewhat chaotic trip, with periods of waiting interspersed with tense and hurried movement.
The copter- our ride to the airport
The most memorable part was the leg we flew by helicopter; all the roads to the airport were flooded, so the military was flying groups of tourists and foreigners there to board planes. A military helicopter is an impressively powerful machine; if we hadn’t been told to sit down on the tarmac before it landed, the blast of wind from its blades would have knocked us over. As we lifted off and flew over the city, we saw for the first time, through the windows, the devastation that we had only heard rumors of. Murky brown water covered much of downtown; two-story houses could only be spotted by the peaks of their roofs. While most people had been rescued, their homes and businesses were all but destroyed.
The other thing that I will remember about our evacuation is the group of people I got to know. All foreigners (mostly Americans) who had come to North India to love and serve its people, most of us didn’t know each other well and were thrown together in this unexpected journey. For some, especially those who had lived there for many years, it was wrenchingly hard to leave neighbors and friends behind. Our group had as many small children as adults, so those of us without kids along helped out; I had a co-worker’s two-year-old girl as my “helicopter buddy” for the day. A special bond formed among the group as a result of the evacuation adventure, and we even held a reunion in Delhi the following week! Hopefully our bond will contribute to greater unity and better working relationships after we return.
The rescue effort
The roads are now open and relief work is in full swing in our city, and we hope to return in a few days to help out. I’m fortunate to have this blog in which to record my memories of the Flood of ’14. Most of my neighbors don’t blog; many of them don’t write at all. I’m looking forward to visiting them, sitting over a cup of tea, and asking about their memories and feelings. Some may be painful and sad. Even if I don’t understand everything, I hope to offer them the gift of listening, of loving them by honoring their stories.
Posted in Uncategorized by Lisa