cars stranded in Dubai floods Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

It’s been an unusual day, to say the least.

Children in the UAE might have squealed with delight as they paddled up and down the street in inflatables and sailed boats to the supermarket (no joke) …

Lucky kids: School’s out again tomorrow

But me – well I lost my mojo somewhere on Al Qudra street – about an hour into the apocalyptic traffic jam attempting to inch its way through biblical floods last seen by Noah.

It all started at 4am, with an enormous crash of thunder. Lightning sliced the sky. But even then, the morning school run was fine – just a disappointed son to contend with following the cancellation of his school trip. Actually, he was more worried about the fact his lunch was in a plastic Spinneys bag (as requested by the teacher). “Mummy, go home and get my lunch box!” he pleaded while I tried to stop him lobbing his sandwiches away.

The sky quickly turned a scrubbed pigeon grey then a really ominous granite colour, sort of slated and solemn. Daylight made only a feeble attempt to break through the billowing cloud cover. The rain, when it came, drummed wildly on our roof. It lashed the windows, cascaded off our garage in a waterfall, and collected in huge ‘ponds’ that within an hour or so all joined up to form floods the size of lakes.

The schools closed, I can’t even begin to imagine what happened at the airports. Buildings flooded, structural damage occurred and the traffic snarled up until it grid-locked so badly I took a big chance and swerved onto sand in the hope of ploughing my way through a building site to escape the Armageddon on Al Qudra (I made it!).

This Dubai driver didn’t make it

The children, meanwhile, went out in their swimming gear. A neighbour took his canoe for a paddle round the compound. Ironically, the water cut off in our villa – I did see the funny side of this, given that outside it was knee-deep, with waves rippling up the path every time a car swished by, wheels hissing. The lights started flickering … “Picked a great week for our winter-sun holiday, didn’t we?” said my Mum as she Facebooked photos of the rain for the amusement of British friends and family.

Her last photo, of tankers vacuuming up the rainwater through giant straws, was captioned: “Now we’ve seen it all!”

Dubai really doesn’t do rain.

Keep safe tomorrow everyone.

I’m well aware there are lots of people in Dubai who love it when it rains – and I really do hope they enjoy the annual downpour. But I’m beginning to wonder if these people have actually been out in the rain – or afterwards, when the floods are knee deep.

Given that rain is a fairly rare event in our patch of desert (maybe a few times a year), I can’t resist doing a quick pictorial on the blog, of the almost biblical event that is a decent rain-shower and the apocalyptic aftermath of a blustery and thundery night.

While we slept … ET phone home!

Lightning sliced the sky, and thunder rolled. Pic courtesy of futureofdubai.com

If I’d looked on Facebook before leaving the house, I might have seen this photo, forewarning of what lay ahead at the roundabout on the school run … (rain, meh!)

Up to the doors in places - and even posh cars get stuck. This is a Rolls-Royce! Pic courtesy of Dubai 92, Catboy & Geordiebird

Up to the doors in places – and even posh cars get stranded. This is a Rolls-Royce! Pic courtesy of Dubai 92, Catboy & Geordiebird

Left: But at least while stuck for an hour-and-a-half on the way to school, there was lots to look at. Right: And a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about attempting to skip the backed-up patient traffic!

Left: But at least while stuck for an hour-and-a-half on the way to school, there’s lots to look at. Right: And a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about attempting to skip the backed-up patient traffic!

Finally through the traffic, we find ourselves on the road to school, which looks like a canal in places …

I begin to wonder if we’ll make it

Left: The ampitheatre at school: “Look Mummy! It’s a duck pond!” Right: Vacuuming starts all around the city-with-no-drains

And the final hurdle … waves outside work! If I’d known, I’d have borrowed a yacht.

But just to prove I’m not a complete rain scrooge, and that there is a silver lining in every cloud … this was the view outside my office window for all of two minutes: