From the flooded suburb

Until yesterday I thought if you live far from a river you won’t be underwater. Until yesterday I was wrong. The Wednesday downpour was ghastly, yesterday the rain was pelting down for around four hours. The electricity was cut off, so around quarter past nine I decided to go to bed. In the morning I woke up, my father and I checked if there was no water in the garage and in the basement. Fortunately we didn’t notice a single droplet of water since three years ago after our garage was flooded, my father got the permission to revamp the draining system and the rainwater can flow into the sewage drains.

As it turned out, in the neighbourhood there were very few people lucky like us. Many gardens and basements are flooded, some 100 metres away on one of the backyards water reached a level of 40 centimetres. As the media report, the situation is really alarming in Piaseczno, where a small brook unexpectedly turned into a big lake. Dirty water reaches there a level of around one metre, dwellers of local houses and blocks are being evacuated…

At my school no one thought it would be a nice idea to let the students enjoy the long weekend before the actual exam period, so I decided to try to get there. To no avail, as you might have surmised…
On my way to the bus stop I saw nothing more disturbing than flooded street and gardens. Having closed in on ul. Puławska I beheld the pond in Mysiadło in a size I’ve never seen before – usually the pavement is three metres away from the pond. The attempt to get somehow to Warsaw would have been a total mistake, if it hadn’t been for the photo coverage I could prepare.





In spite of the long weekend and non-peak hours the traffic jam on ul. Puławska was worse than usual. The bus on the photo to the right departed from the bus stop in Mysiadło just a few seconds before I get there and decided to walk towards the junction of ul. Puławska and ul. Karczunkowska which had been underwater. By the time I got there the bus didn’t even reach the stop in Dąbrówka, I walked around three times faster than the vehicles moved. The sight was really dreadful – both lanes were flooded, some desperate guys driving towards Piaseczno were trying to get through the great puddle. I decided to give up on the abortive idea of getting anywhere and returned home. On my way I snapped once again the pond in Mysiadło and one of the willows, struck by a lightening yesterday. I marked the “normal” shore with yellow dotted line.

Back home I found out the situation was getting worse. Neighbours said the sewage treatment plant in Piaseczno has also been flooded and doesn’t work. If it’s not fixed soon the sewage may blow up and start pouring into garages, basements and to the streets.

I didn’t take photos where the tragedy is really big and where the dwellers were fighting the water. Above you can see only a flooded field, one third of the village look like this. I heard landline phones also don’t work after the water washed the switchboard box… I hope this was the last rainfall and in the coming two days the misery of those who suffered losses won’t be aggravated…