Water, water, everywhere...

Water seems to have been the underlying theme of the weekend, and it seems like it'll stretch through this week as well.

It started on Friday. We woke up to black skies which broke to release a real tropical-like storm, which I was very glad to see and hear. It was the full monty of white-out rainfall with bursts of thunder and lightning, reminding me so much of home.

Apparently, too much like home. At about 12, when we were in the midst of a tutorial, the consultant's pager bleeped, and it was an emergency code - the hospital was flooded! There was at least 1 inch of water in the main hallways of the ground floor, and lifts were stopped; the only way in was to come from the new AM wing and trek all along the 1st floor corridors and stairs to where you wanted to go. Today one of the SHOs told us that many people thought that the emergency alert was a terror alert - it was, after all, near the anniversary of a foiled bombing, and medical staff had recently been convicted of plotting the recent attempts in London and Glasgow. Furthermore, this was Tooting, so there was an abundance of so-called "suspicious-looking" healthcare workers around. Because of these misgivings and the chaos that the rain caused, many people were running aimlessly about like chickens who had lost their heads. The abovementioned SHO saw a poor pregnant lady fall to the ground and almost get trampled over. The insanity of it all!

Even the library on the 1st floor wasn't left out (surprisingly). The pipes couldn't cope with the influx of water and broke, breaking the board ceilings of the silent study area, which is now closed for repairs. Amazingly, the library staff had a poster complete with picture up 5 minutes after the place was evacuated!

Outside, in Greater London, the picture was just as bad. The drains had overflowed and the waters conquered roads, shops, tube stations, etc. Cars were left abandoned, and even torched (!), and the whole city was in chaos. The irony of it all was that after the rain stopped, the sun showed itself with a vengeance, though that hardly helped to clear the damages. Even in the evening when I went out, the public transport system was in disarray (it took me twice as long to reach central London) and the sirens of ambulances and fire-engines would sound every few minutes or so.

There was supposed to be another severe storm warning this afternoon, but so far it's just been raining lightly (relatively). I guess they're not taking chances now, but I don't think London'll be ready for another torrent of rain again. And there's enough water flooding the rest of the country! It's amazing, I thought I'd only have to deal with floods back home, but I never knew that there'd be flooding here as well. Perhaps we equatorial people brought the equatorial weather here? LoL

It rained Saturday as well, which slightly dampened spirits in the 7-man (actually, 6 girls, 1 guy) group who went trekking in Surrey. Pictures from that later - we had a mini-adventure trying to find an alternative trail when we found out that the nearby river had taken over the original trail, but it was overall a very enjoyable trek! I should do that more often.

Maybe when there's less rain.

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A midnight read means I've finished the Harry Potter book! Whee, I'm so glad! My review here.