forcebwithu

Apologies for the delay, but routed my morning ride to go up Soi Post Office so I could scope out the scene at the two places you asked about. As for the Post Office... And Little Hole does have food.

The reservoirs are almost dry and govt officials are finally having meetings to "discuss finding a solution", or those meetings are finally making the news. Sattahip and Chonburi officials meet to discuss solutions for severe water supply issues in area Sattahip and Chonburi officials met yesterday morning to discuss finding a solution regarding lack of water and low water pressure in Sattahip after many local complaints. Sathira Pueakprapan, a member of the council in Chonburi and other local officials held the meeting to discuss how to solve water problems in Sattahip at about

Even when the rain does come, like it did about two weeks ago, it didn't even put a dent in the reservoir water deficit.

Local news is finally waking up to the fact we're close to running out of water. They do have some good aerial views of the reservoir puddles. Pattaya water levels remain low as Chak Nok reservoir sits at roughly 5 percent of capacity Pattaya- The Provincial Water Authority has warned Pattaya and Chonburi residents to conserve water at this time as due to lack of rain and an ongoing drought the Chak Nok reservoir currently sits at roughly 5 percent of capacity. Local residents have contacted The Pattaya News over the past week complaining about lack of water or water p

They say the best jokes are told with a pause before the punchline, but I don't think they meant a six month pause.

Progress update on the Beach Rd drainage project beginning on the north end.

I was a little worried going out on this morning's photo recon of Mabprachan Reservoir due to the announcement the area reservoirs were closed to all activities. I was also wondering if I might face checkpoints on the way back to my home in Pattaya. Neither concern came to pass as there were 20 or so out on the reservoir running and biking, and there were no checkpoints outbound or on my return. That's the positive, now the negative. Mabprachan has maybe a week to 10 days of water left. There was no point in recording GPS waypoints of the current shoreline as you can see in the pictures b

Update from the Eastern Water Resources Dept as of 3 April (link). When I first checked the charts I did a double take to make sure I had pulled up the correct date. Reason is there has been an 11.5 million cubic meter (MCM) increase in the past week. Since there hasn't been enough rain to account for the increase, it's possible Gen Prawit made good on his 19 March statement, "the government would extract 14 million cubic metres of water from old mining sites. The Royal Irrigation Department has also diverted 10 million cubic metres from a river in Chanthaburi province to replenish three

Excellent TR. TFP. So very true, "now the weekends have no sport, one day is just the same as any other"

Not an open door, but openings that allows excess water to flow over the top and into a drain pipe. That pipe runs under the dam and dumps the excess water into a stream bed on the other side. My friend is holding his hands apart noting how high the water is above the top of the openings. The cranks on the top are used to raise and lower partitions to block the flow of water into the overflow pipe. Like other dams around the world with spillways, they're used to control the amount of water released in extreme flooding conditions. The pic below gives you a better view of the overflow openi

A pic from a friend when Mabprachan was overflowing.

Water truck with free water made a trip down our soi this morning. We've been without city water for three days now due to a broken main, so the free water is appreciated. Someone asked if Katesiree was still serving coffee. Sadly the answer is no, at both locations. Still working on the new Jomtien Hospital. Looks like outpatient services are open. Resorts/ST rooms are now closed.

After Mabprachan, next stop was a photo recon on the state of Huai Chak Nok Reservoir. Map updated with waypoints marking the current shoreline edge. When I got to the turnoff for the road over the dam, I was surprised to see they had it barricaded. No doubt closed due to the latest edict from the Chonburi Governor to keep people from gathering in groups of any size. Since I was a group of one, and seeing a guy walking his dogs in the distance I figured I'd chance it. So lifted my bicycle over the barricade and had a nice quiet ride by my lonesome self across the dam. New s

Since Mabprachan is shrinking fast I've increased the frequency of updates. Got out early this morning for another update to beat the heat of the day. Map updated with waypoints marking the current shoreline edge. The receding southern shoreline The dry land opposite the dam is edging even closer Hard to get a fix on what is the northern shoreline edge since it's a cove. Where three days ago there were five pumps, not that I ever saw them all in use at the same time, now there is one. A thirsty city skyline in the distance that will s

Not helping the shortage of water situation is the slow response from the water dept to fixing breaks in the main. Our soi had a major break yesterday morning. In this case the water didn't make it to the surface, but instead the water found a path directly to the storm water drains underneath. You couldn't see the water, but you could definitely hear the gushing water. It was immediately reported, but no one bothered to come to even shut the main off. A few minutes ago I heard a jack hammer at work so went to check it out. While I'm happy to see they're finally working on the break,

Someone should teach the Eastern Water Resources Dept that by definition a weekly water situation report is meant to be released weekly, not two at a time every two weeks. Same as they did the last couple of reports. Anyway, I see this morning both reports for the 20th and 27th have now been posted (link). First thing I checked to see is if the statement Gen Prawit made on 19 March, "the government would extract 14 million cubic metres of water from old mining sites. The Royal Irrigation Department has also diverted 10 million cubic metres from a river in Chanthaburi province to replenish

Got out and had a look at Mabprachan Reservoir this morning. Since the water that remains is relatively shallow, the shoreline has receded quite a bit from the last update five days ago. Maps of the receding shoreline and photo waypoints are now at the end of the post. Pic 01: View from the south end of the dam. The southern shoreline as of today. In a few days that finger of water will be nothing but a memory. They're catching some nice size fish now. Pic 02: Not much of gap left between the dam and the dry land on the other side of the shallow channel

Season 3 is released.

Good news, the rear derailleur was quickly replaced and only set me back 1,500B + 200B for the pickup from where I broke down. Bad news, they replaced the derailleur with the wrong model so it jams when I try to shift up into the two highest gears. Not worth the time and effort to go back to the shop to have them do it correctly, instead ordered the correct model from Lazada for 1,200B which should arrive from China in about a week. Meanwhile the bike is still rideable, so did a group ride with friends this morning and when we were near Huai Chak Nok Reservoir, split from the group to get a ph

In my latest pic of the Soi 6 drain, you can see to the left of the black, plastic drain the concrete drain that I'm pretty sure ties into the laterals coming in from the different sois along Beach Rd. I believe the new drains are meant to supplement the existing storm water drainage, and all lead to the pumping station at the south end of Beach Rd.

Line at Thai Airways office this morning. Road into New Plaza getting a scrub. First thing that caught my eye was the free food part. Thought, that's a nice gesture in these trying times. Alas, once my brain caught up to what my eyes were seeing I realized she was using an old Korando's Bar party poster for a tablecloth.

Update of the north end of Beach Rd as of this morning. Looks like they might be fast tracking the project now that there's very few tourists left. Soi 1 Soi 2 Soi 3 Soi 5 And at Soi 6 it looks like they either dug out the buried pipe that connects the south end of the drains, or they installed the missing section in the past week. At any rate, the water from the north now has a way to continue on to the south.

Did my report late afternoon yesterday, but as I hadn't received the approved email I checked the status and see that it was approved late last night. No email notification, and I checked my spam folder. Probably a minor glitch somewhere that caused the email not to get sent, or it got eaten by the same gremlin that eats one sock out of a pair in the wash. Just a heads up to BM's in case they're wondering where their approval email is.

Earlier today I had one Bangkok Bank ATM give me a communication error message when I tried to withdraw some cash. Went to another BB ATM and withdrew the money just fine. Suspect the network was just overloaded from all the panicked people trying to get cash. Sad really all the rumors floating around and people panicking as a result. Too bad their govt is mostly to blame for the rumor mills with the way they're handling this emergency announcement. BTW, mine wasn't a panic withdrawal, just the normal, every couple of days replenish my pocket cash withdrawal.