The Great Phuket Town Flood of 2022

This is NOT the post I had planned for today, Sunday the 16th of October 2022. In Phuket Town, Sunday evenings are reserved for the popular Walking Street known locally as Lard Yai. I highly doubt that tonight’s event will go ahead, however.

It has been raining here for weeks. It is the Monsoon Season, after all. But Phuket Town has largely been spared the massive flooding that so much of the rest of Thailand has experienced over the last two or three months. There have been a few high-water days over in Patong but this part of the island has not seen large-scale flooding for a number of years now.

*Water World garb — rain poncho and the ever-present facemask. I also had my umbrella to protect my phone while taking photos and video clips.*

Even before the deep waters of September 2017 (the record-breaker), the municipal government here was working hard to remove branches and other debris that clogged the khlongs (canals) that criss-cross the community. Drains were widened and additional measures were put into place to prevent flooding. Because of this, I have not seen significant water on road surfaces around here in quite some time.

*The municipality had their personnel out blocking vehicular access to flooded roads, clearing stuff floating down the canals, and generally looking after their citizens.*

*Post Office corner (Th. Montri going north and south, entering the western section of Th. Thalang).*

Thus, I was somewhat surprised this morning to observe extremely high water along Suthat Road near Seng Ho (the oldest bookshop in Phuket), particularly in the alleyway running between that and 7-Eleven. I ended up walking down Montri Road to the intersection past the post office (with Trickeye Museum leading west to the bus station) and then east down Phang Nga Road.

These Russian tourists were returning from an excursion when their mini-van had to stop on its way to the Bus Terminal. They decided to wait for the waters to recede rather than wade through this intersection. There was a bit of high ground nearby, another flooded intersection, then the remainder of the way to the station looked like it was walkable.

*The water came to just above my knees in the intersection right after where the mini-van shown above was stopped.*

The areas crossing the canal bridges and intersections bisected by Thepkassatri Road had fast-flowing water (nearly swept me off my feet on Thalang Road). It was deepest on Yaoworat Road heading north from the intersection with Phang Nga Road. The back portion of my soi (lane) had deep water and my neighbors were trying to pack sandbags around the entrances to their homes.

Quite an interesting morning — I shot a lot of video (and have put the clips into yet another 35-minute YouTube video) as well as a number of still photos. I am worried about my neighbors with small businesses; they have already been struggling and it appeared that customers and tourists had finally started to turn the tables once again. I hope these flood waters go down soon (but much more rain is forecast for at least the next several days) and they suffer minimal damage and loss of inventory.