PHET effect - on the streets and at the hotel

I sit in the lounge of Regent Plaza, a somewhat known hotel to me, waiting for my room to get ready. My sister has an exam in an hour. It’s pouring madly outside. CFA people didn’t find it in their interest to postpone the paper. Thus after a hurried session of packing my valuables, jamming in the car, and hitting the road at break neck speed, we arrive at Regent.

Now you may be thinking, why did we shift to this hotel, what about the house? Well, the house, after much tear and sweat was sealed against rain water the whole day yesterday, but the seal didn’t match the wrath of the rain. When it started to rain last night, around 2 AM, the house was in waters within an hour. Specially my room. It became a mini pond. Rest of the rooms were relatively dry. Ironic for this to happen to someone who is water phobic?

So well, the whole night was spent awake, with me and my dad manually trying to throw the water out as much as we could and seal the places with cement and plaster. It was useless, as it turned out. The water was one tough opponent, always finding ways to get in. I tried countless strategies of the Need for Speed game, to think of ways how difficult is this challenge, and how difficult the next challenge will be?

And while waiting in the lobby, I meet a student, waiting for her turn to come so she can go in the exam room. She’s scared for her exam, yet she is more scared about how it’s going to be when she comes out, how far will her house be under the waters? I shudder to think the condition of my house right now. Probably a nesting place for fishes?

Now the truth is: I have no idea how it’s going to turn out now. I’m now in the refuge of a hotel, which of course is un-safe in this country, my room is still not ready, and it will take half an hour more. My sister’s paper starts in an hour. God help us all. I don’t want to drown.

PHET- up

Right now, as i write, its starting to rain outside. I put all my phones on charge, tell the people of the house to do the same. Get the torches out, and clean the generator. My sister is sleeping right now behind me, she has a paper tommorow. I just hope she wakes up to a dry sunny day.
I write this, to summarise the fiasco happening in my life in the past couple of days due to this cyclone PHET. Ever since it has started, just a couple o days back, life in karachi for me has been somewhat crippled. Different channels giving different reports, different websites giving their own little views on how its going to struck karachi.
My mom has been the worst hit uptil now i suppose. She has been worried like PHET is going to come right upto our house and knock on our door and ask for a shower. All the sms she recieves are automatically repeated at the maximum volume to the entire house, all the website reports are saved and emailed to everyone. She even has made a contingent plan of shifting to a hotel, which is apparently the only place where the cyclone wont be planning to go. When this is all over, and i hope it is really soon, she will be the one who feels the most relieved i suppose.
So well, starting off BBC has been a giant pain in the arse about this. Last night it predicted clear skies, and well, it rained bullocks over my house. Clear skies? My ass! Weather.com/yahoo weather has been predicting thunderstorms every hour, and today the whole day it predicted the same, when the sun was out and i was drenched in sweat getting my house sealed from the expected water. The dilemma is, who to believe here?
Which brings me to a whole different news, urgent house restructuring took place today. In a span of 2 hours, the house was made somewhat waterproof. The water tank raised, the entrance doors of the ground floor recieved bricks and cement, to make sure no water creeps in (like the last time it rained, and there was 2ft of water inside the house), the windows sealed with this silicone stuff, and sand dunes being made on all open spots. Oh and the cars got these black pipes on their asses to stop the water from going up its holes. Funny much i suppose.
This cyclone PHET is seriously getting on my nerves. Im tired of friends sms-ing me to tell me how fun it was for them to know me, how its time they drown and die, or sms-ing stuff like take care, stay on high grounds and blah blah. I may be the most care-free person about PHET right now, i dont care if it hits or not. If it does, bad luck, we gotta suck up and live with it. If not, we still get a shit load of rain to face, and well.. suck up.
All i care about is that i got a paper on thursday. And BBC predicts a sunny day. God help me!