Crazy weather

Source:DPA/ The Local, Germany
I was soaked to the bone yesterday.

After teaching, I went to the pool for some relaxing me-time. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and everything seemed perfect.

One hour into swimming, it started to pour. What supposed to be a 15-minute downpour turned out to last for hours!

I continued swimming indoors and had to give the outdoor pool a miss since it was closed, due to lighting strikes.

It was so bad that the lights in the swimming pool were flickering as the electricity flow was disrupted.

Not wanting to miss my train, I left the swimming area even though the surrounding was flooded.

Yes, flooding. I had to wade through the ankle-high water and even stepped right into mud.

2 cars went past me, without slowing down and I had a second bath there and then! I was basically 75% wet from the chest downwards.

Not to be deterred, I trugged on and finally reached the train-stop. The thought of having a warm shower (again) and a warm drink gave me the motivation to get out of this storm.

The waiting area didn´t provide much relief from the weather, because the wind was really strong and the rain was blowing sideways in our direction.

The train didn´t come.

Waited. 10 mins, 20mins, 30 mins.

This was beginning to get weird. I finally called the toll-number of the train and realized to my worst fear that the train services were cancelled amidst the bad weather.

Boy, this was the first time that I experienced first-hand what it meant to be stuck in bad weather.

And it wasn´t THAT bad. The storm was no different from those that happen in Singapore on a daily basis. The only exception was that our area is not equipped for such bad weather (since it hardly rains that heavily here). The drainage system was simply not constructed for this volume of water, which resulted in widespread flooding.

I called the hubby who refused to pick me since he was at work. I think he had no idea about the extent of the bad weather. Being all drenched, cold and still not recovered from my bad throat, I wasn´t in the best of all moods either.

I asked if he could ask his father to pick me up. I didn´t want to contact my FIL (father-in-law) initially since he had a minor operation just last Tuesday.

It turned out, my FIL was the hero of the day! He drove down to the train-stop and fetched me and 4 other people (who were also stranded there) to our homes.

What would normally take 10 minutes, took 1 whole hour that day - which felt like an eternity since we were all drenched and cold.

Oh boy....on our way, we saw cars submerged 50% in water! My neighbourhood! Just around the corner....Oh man, it was such an eye-opener! You just don´t think things like this happen in a developed country, but they do! Especially since such weather is unusual here.

There were traffic jams all over the place, because some roads were completely covered in water and passing cars were 90% under water.

I read the news today and this was the headlines "Violent storms cause chaos, two deaths"... full article, click here

I´m just thankful that I managed to get home, am safe and sound and hubby managed to get home safely too.