
Chennai floods: The Hindu not published for first time since 1878 - devnonymous
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34981328
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kshatrea
Like many other people, I have family there and there is no doubt about it,
this is one of the worst disasters to hit Chennai. We will have to wait out
the storm to see the cumulative damage, but most of my family and friends are
reporting Venezuela-like conditions of empty store shelves and lack of mobile
and internet networks. In such a condition, I don't think The Hindu had a
chance. On a more positive note, here is how startups are helping:
[http://yourstory.com/2015/12/startups-rally-help-
chennai/](http://yourstory.com/2015/12/startups-rally-help-chennai/)

~~~
jeswin
>but most of my family and friends are reporting Venezuela-like conditions of
empty store shelves and lack of mobile and internet networks

What is a Venezuela-like condition? Never heard such a phrasing before. Also,
don't agree with negative associations to a country/people in a wholly
unrelated discussion.

~~~
kshatrea
I can only apologize - I presume I heard it somewhere and internalized it. Not
like I am making fun of Venezuela, at least not intentionally.

~~~
late2part
You're making an analogy (simile/metaphor?) based on a supportable fact.

Folks can argue about the veracity of your fact, but it's extremely
supportable:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+condition&oq=venez...](https://www.google.com/search?q=venezuela+condition&oq=venezuela+condition)

Don't give in to the politically correct folks. Support and back up your
opinions, and don't shrink from asserting facts.

Next thing you know, people will say we should outlaw words like antediluvian.

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user_no_2
Huge problem this. My family member had surgery on Monday and got stuck at the
hospital along with my wife. Over night the hospital turned into an Island.
Spent all day today trying to get people to get some food and water for them.
They are home now, safe.

Must mention: Chennaiites really came together for this one. People helping
each other with everything they have. Made me proud. And it helped me relax a
little knowing that I can reach to people for help. Amazing all around. Any
number I called, everyone tried to help. Everyone took the info and did what
they can.

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aidos
The first I heard of this was yesterday when Chargebee (our subscription
billing provider) responded to a support request saying that they're running a
skeleton staff and only dealing with urgent issues. A couple of hours later
they then went on to help me out anyway (they have amazing support for anyone
who hasn't dealt with them).

It's made me stop and think a little about the vulnerability of the services
you rely on to run your business. The situation could have been different and
they could have been put out of action temporarily or permanently. It's all
too easy to ignore the risk of services going down (for whatever reason) when
you're doing your evaluations.

In this case I'd still use chargebee in a heartbeat but I do need to put
something in place to snapshot all my billing data from their system on a
regular basis (thankfully they make it very easy).

Horrible situation for those involved (my heart goes out to those who have
lost loved ones) and I wish the region a speedy recovery.

~~~
skrish
Thank you. Krish, cofounder of Chargebee here. We were worried about couple of
team members who were specifically in areas that were worst affected but glad
to know that everyone of them is safe.

Thanks to distributed infrastructure the services were at 100% and we had DR
plans in place. But support wasn't very distributed. Lessons learnt. Having
our San Francisco team member onboard was very helpful to get to urgent call
back requests but still limited. Some of us stayed in office to provide
support, as it was one of the safest places with power backup for weeks for
such eventualities, internet and most importantly food. We also had a few
folks who needed a safe place to stay.

As a critical infrastructure provider we do have our disaster recovery &
business continuity plans, but thankfully the service availability was not
affected.

But I think it is equally important to ensure we distribute team more globally
as we continue to grow, so that data safety & availability is not dependent on
what you as a customer plan for, rather something we have also baked-in as
part of service.

Thank you for the support and shoutout. Cheers.

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markplindsay
I arrived in Chennai on the evening of the 30th. The rain really got started
later that night and it poured all day and all night on the 1st. On the 2nd I
realized it might be a good idea to leave if I could—but I couldn't. No
trains, no buses, and no taxis were willing to try. I was very lucky that my
hotel was situated in a relatively unaffected area (near Spencer Plaza) and we
did not lose electricity. But obviously most people were not so fortunate.

I was finally able to get someone to drive me and another guy to Bangalore on
the 3rd, but even then we were almost unable to find a route out. It took us 2
hours just to get out of the center, and we had to drive through many
completely flooded stretches.

It was a scary experience, but I was so impressed at how Chennaites and
concerned folks from outside Tamil Nadu were helping each other out on
Twitter. Twitter was actually essential in my own escape—there was a lot of
discussion of open routes out, and I was able to pass along some key street
names to my driver.

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simonh
I have a colleague over there. What with transport blockages, loss of power
and communications, etc it's been a rough few weeks. My colleague's home has
now flooded and the family has moved in with relatives in another city, so at
least they are safe. The team over there has done brilliantly, with people
staying in each other's homes when they got cut off and the company putting
people up in hotels, but it's been a losing battle. The office is shut down
now and everyone's just getting to safety. The next problem is going to be
sanitation and disease prevention, with the drains blocked you can imagine the
issues.

~~~
allpratik
Yes, I too fear for rise of diseases after this disaster. Though still now we
don not have any staff there but We are currently in process to deploy
EpiMetrics epidemics intelligence engine to report and predict on disease
outbreaks. [http://www.epimetrics.in](http://www.epimetrics.in)

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mknits
The flood in Chennai is man-made.

[http://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/chennai-floods-a-man-
made-d...](http://www.ndtv.com/chennai-news/chennai-floods-a-man-made-
disaster-say-experts-1246050)

~~~
eitally
And besides what's stated there, there has been at least one case where the
state intentionally flooded an area in order to prevent a dam burst that would
have had an even worse impact.

(I have friends over there, too, and it's been ... hard to maintain contact.)

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univalent
My mother is stuck with some neighbors on the second floor of my house. First
floor is 3/4 flooded. They are OK for now but food and water is going to
become a problem if the rains don't let up :-(

My aunt had to be evacuated by boat from her place. I haven't lived in Chennai
over 15 years but it is surreal to see the pictures.

Very frustrating that the government spent money on laying fiber and setting
up a subway system over the past few years without doing anything to improve
the drainage system. The city faces cyclones every year. This was just waiting
to happen.

~~~
praneshp
I empathize with you (my dad lives in chennai, and we are yet to make contact
with one of my friends). The worst seems to be over, so hopefully the city
will be fine.

I moved out 3 years ago, so I wanted to reply to the fiber/subway part of your
comment. Those two were absolutely essential, and a better drainage system
would not have helped much in the floods. In the last 10 years or so, there
has been ridiculous construction on what used to be lakes, and today the worst
affected areas are those. See my comment here on HN from almost 2 years ago .
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881544)).
This was waiting to happen, but not because the drainage system sucks, there
is literally nowhere to drain the water off to.

~~~
univalent
A dumb question: Shouldn't they be able to setup drainage into the ocean?

~~~
praneshp
I hope they will do that with the (1000Cr - corruption) they got as relief
package. It's clear the lakes aren't coming back.

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sudhirj
Chennaite here. Large parts of the city are submerged and a lot of phone
networks and lines are down. The rains have stopped for now, though, so the
situation can only get better until they start again.

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kasapisa
Well, technically speaking, that's not true exactly because, they are off, 4
or maybe 5 days a year during major festivals. Remarkable achievement,
nonetheless.

~~~
manojlds
Unplanned stoppage of publishing maybe the right term.

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antoaravinth
My mom stays in Chennai, I should say the situation is worse. No phone
networks makes it even worse. Its been almost 19hrs I spoke with her. Pray for
Chennai.

~~~
manojlds
I am in Chennai. Twitter is good place to reach out with hashtag
#chennairainshelp.

Tell me if I can do something to help.

~~~
antoaravinth
Thanks for your reply. Mom called me from landline few mins ago and said she
is safe.

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noipv4
Friends have been reporting that the ground floor of their homes are 3/4th
submerged.

