Paralysis

Since Thursday night (Feb 1st), Jakarta and its surrounding areas has been hit by very hard rains. What was a late-night visit to Saskia's turned into a 2-night stayover, since all roads coming in and going out of the Bangka-Kemang area (where Saski lives) have been blocked off by floods. To add to the misery, the rain kept relentlessly pouring down, and the power in the direct vicinity of Saski's house was down for those 2 days, as the power junction was submerged.
The rest of Jakarta was similarly afflicted, either cut off from other areas, with or without power, the worst submerged under 3 meters of water from who knows where (well, other than the sky).
Political figures blamed each other, while the regular folk just went along, rolled up their pants and sleeves and tried to help each other. Policemen guarded various road points to divert traffic from flooded areas, while some people actually made money pushing their wheelbarrows carrying people or motorcycles across the water. People stuck on their second floors started to starve, while a force of people too small for its task tried to help them out.
It's bad out there, and today the floods have not subsided; many are warning of return of higher floods due to hard rain in higher Bogor, about 50 km south of Jakarta.

I just got back to my house at 2 PM today, taking advantage of a lull in the floods opening up one of the roads from the Kemang area; and now, it's starting to rain again.

My prayers go out to those afflicted by the floods. An aunt of mine lost everything; her house sits behind a small creek which overflowed and took everything with it, even pushing her car out of the garage to the road...

I was planning to make my next post about my recent gadget acquisition, a Huawei HSDPA modem with a good yearly plan for internet usage, but it seems kind of pointless.