Sunday 6 June 2010

Pumps and film crews

Today, private initiative (using hired pumps to pump water off your land onto someone elses) was replaced by public sector intervention. All day long, tanker trucks from Wodociągi (quite literally, 'water-pullers') were driving up ul. Trombity, vacuuming the water into the tanks. As one would leave, another two would turn up to replace it. Trouble is, by the evening, the water level had only fallen marginally. Still they come.

The TV crews are still popping along to film this phenomenon - houses under water that are miles from the river, within the city limits of the capital of the sixth largest member of the world's richest trading bloc. Compare with pics from yesterday. Video here.

As I mentioned, tomorrow's commute from Warsaw's southern suburbs and exurbs will be hell. With ul. Starzyńskiego (between Zamienie, Dawidy Bankowe and Dawidy) closed because of the bridge down, ul. Karczunkowska will be getting twice as much traffic. And while the water-pullers have done their bit by the railway crossing (below), there are other problems...

...this sinkhole of almost Guatemalan proportions has opened up on Karczunkowska (below)between the tracks and Zamienie and Zgorzała. This will take days to fix. Leave the car and take the train instead.

5 comments:

adthelad said...

Enjoyed the bike ride, back aching again though - must be that hard saddle (or weak back muscles):)

Must say that your photos, in their small format, remind me of olden day postcards - soooo saturated.

Jacek Koba said...

I was following the Warsaw storms from the provinces, no less saturated in water, but it was a revelation when I got the Warsaw map out to trace the progress of the Corpus Christi storm against TV Info reports, mostly to see how my very own Kabaty fared. Isn't there just a little bit of irony in the names of the places badly hit by the storm? 'Urwisko' in Ursynow - where the storm caused a landslide; 'Moczydlo' - which got the worst flooding in Kabaty; 'Jeziorki' - living up to its name too.

Anonymous said...

Which ones are the film crews? Your photos look really retouched, with turquoise like Caribbean skies and tropical colours.

Jeannie said...

Be careful with the sinkholes.

This is from the Seattle Times:

Portland man's body found in backyard sinkhole

The body of a Portland man has been found in a 35-foot-deep sinkhole partly filled with water in his backyard after a friend called police to say she hadn't heard from him.

The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. —
The body of a Portland man has been found in a 35-foot-deep sinkhole partly filled with water in his backyard after a friend called police to say she hadn't heard from him.

Dr. Karin Gunson, the state medical examiner, says 57-year-old Michael Zerwas died of a combination of hypothermia and drowning but survived the initial fall into the hole.

Officials say the hole was 5 feet wide and opened up over what appeared to be an old brick-lined cistern.

Police went to Zerwas' home Sunday after being called by a woman in Iowa who said she hadn't heard from him since Thursday.

Firefighter Justin de Ruyter was among those called to the scene after police found the body. He says he believes Zerwas, a private investigator, was gardening when the ground collapsed

Michael Dembinski said...

Colour rendition:

1) I use a circular polarising filter, to give an idea of what it's like wearing polarising sunglasses, which I usually wear on sunny days.

2) I hardly ever touch the 'colour saturation' slider. 'Vibrance' tweaked, yes, by 8% 10%. Contrast will be raised a touch too.

The general idea is to recreate what I saw and felt at the time.