NIGHTMARE on omr on 23/11: relentless rain, waist high water, unmoving traffic
Hello Friends,
Those of you stayed at home on Monday the 23rd November are the luckiest, I would say. The city witnessed a horrendous scene with people experiencing a nightmare – walking in waisthigh water fearing potholes and loosely strewn electric wiring on the streets.
I left Sholingannalur OMR at 6:00 pm by office bus and reached home at T.Nagar at 1:00 am in the morning of the 24th.
The first set of alarm bells came in at around 5:30 when family/friends from the city called in to report and the rain that was lashing the city. Funnily OMR was experiencing only a heavy drizzle at that time, but just at about 6:30pm there was a huge downpour and our bus was travelling in a blinding rain. It took us nearly 2.5 hours to reach Perungudi and from then on there was hardly any movement.
The inch by inch moving traffic made us to believe that there was a huge traffic diversion and that there was help at hand. We were imagining traffic constables in rain coats and gum boots to be manning the situation at the Anna University – OMR – Adyar junction. But we were shocked to see that after 5 hours of long wait the Madhya Kailash junction was completely unmanned and that vehicles were going about in every direction possible and CHAOS and PANDEMONIUM was evident.
People were getting off the buses and walking to the railway station to catch the last train back home, some were braving the rain and walking it to their homes. And some were locking their cars and hitchhiking.
This was the sight at Madhya Kailash junction at 12am on the night of 23/11. MRTS travelling above and vehicles coming in from all directions with NO traffic police in sight and IT employees and auto rickshaw drivers were regulating traffic.
Questions that were raging through my mind were, where was the traffic police? Why were they not some quick traffic diversions? What were the safety measures for women who were walking to their homes at 1 am in the morning? How was our taxes being utilized if this was stat of affairs in the city? Guess this is Chennai!
Cheers
Bhuvana Rajaram
