Factory Flooded
The Factory
Our QPP factory surroundings started to flood lightly since mid October. The canal at the back of the factory was increasing in size daily, giving us some good warning signs that waters could hit us soon. Though official information from the government was that the worst was over, we had been warned that high tides would arrive on 15th October and that if we passed those times, we would be safe and sound! In fact Quick Pack organized a relief effort to help Ayutthaya residents. Ayutthaya is one of Thailand’s old capitals and it is protected by the UNESCO for it’s temples and architecture. All of Quick Pack employees put together some money and we purchased 5000 bottles of drinking water and a small boat; we rented a military truck and then went to distribute in Ayutthaya. Little did we know that only a week later we would be in the same (if not worse) conditions of the people that we went to help. During the floods the most essential things to have were BOATS, DRINKING WATER and FOOD. We had just given out a massive amount of water and now we were the ones who needed it urgently. I guess it’s quite ironic how that worked out. Although, in turn, we received a massive help from the foreigner community in Bangkok.
So after our Sunday trip to help Ayutthaya residents, we were actually convinced that the worst was over, how wrong we were!! The reality was that without any official public warning, the worst was still to come. So as we witnessed more and more areas North of us fall to the floods we began to fear that serious amount of water would definitely hit us. Like many others in Bangkok, we built flood protection walls in case the levels should rise, and rise they did. Enormous amounts of water came down through the roads on 21st October 2011. That very first day, Quick Pack’s core team fought for 24 hours straight without sleep. Our objective was to keep the water away from our electrical equipment especially those parts related to our Italian production lines. In total we erected 15 walls which meant also that we had to keep all of them under constant control.
The first week after the big floods arrived was the most difficult, we had only a few pumps and we didn’t have much experience with them and also no experience on water management. The walls seemed to withstand water pressure quite well but the main problem was the water that came from below the ground surging up through the floor from inside the factory itself. All we could do was pump the water out for 24 hours a day. We divided into shifts and our job changed from producing packaging films to WATER MANAGEMENT. All we could do is pump continuously and try to look for more and more pumps everyday because, as the levels rose, the pressure also increased meaning that more water was entering our premises so without more pumps we would loose the fight against the floods. In fact, we have two main warehouses opposite each other; on the older side, we have 3 lines producing Shrink Films, and that areas was abandoned to it’s own destiny almost immediately (even though the high protection walls). This is because the water that surged through the ground inundated the main circuit breaker creating quite a dangerous scenario as now just stepping into that water could leave a man electrocuted.
By the second week we had 50 pumps pumping water out of our factory grounds day and night, and we had become experts on water management. We were fighting continuously what felt like a war that we couldn’t win. Out of the 200 employees that we usually have we were left with only 15 faithful that slept here on factory grounds. We had serious difficulty getting basic essentials like water, food and petrol for the pumps. We also had numerous other people, many of which we didn’t even know, sleeping in our buildings, this was because millions of people had escaped their houses and were looking for higher ground shelter and since we had space, we welcomed as many as we could. Food, water and Petrol were lowered to us by friends from the elevated toll way which passes very close by our factory and it was the only place where cars were safe to run, and of course there were many kilometers of traffic jams everyday.
At first we all thought that the floods would not last long but we were wrong. They lasted 50 days!! We managed to purchase some serious motorboats (by the end we had 8 boats, 5 of them were motorized) The roads were like torrents which meant that going upstream was virtually impossible on a paddleboat. After some time we became accustomed to our new life and we traveled by boat around the area with ease, picking up goods and distributing out aid to help others whom had been left behind after the evacuations. Before the floods completely subsided we even started delivering some old stock of finished goods to the highway by boats and then loaded again on trucks in the higher toll ways, just so that we could start selling something again. Our loss has been abundant, but at the same time we gained a precious experience in life of charity and sacrifice. If we look at other companies affected we must consider ourselves lucky as we started producing again immediately after the floods receded.