Storm in Cairo

Wow.

Yesterday was the last day at work before a break, so we went for a drink at the Red Onion with our friends. That morning there had been quite a downpour of rain, which for Cairo was rather impressive. By the time we had finished work, however, the weather had cleared up.

We sat down for a drink when one of our friends noticed the wind was getting up again, and then saw the frosted windows light up with lightning flashes. Quite intrigued we went outside with the video camera which we just so happened to have with us!

We were in the pub for longer than we expected while we waited for the storm to blow out, but when we got back to the apartment the lightning was still flashing across the sky.

Shortly after this, we noticed a sound like a shower outside the apartment in the stairwell. Going out to investigate we noticed a large puddle of water gathering outside our door (fortunately the large marble lintle stopped the water getting in). The stairs from the upstairs were a river of water, and so we worked with our upstairs neighbours to find buckets to collect the water coming in through the manhole that provides access to the roof. This was a rather futile attempt, but at least gave us opportunity to start clearing up so it didn't ruin the whole block.

It took about an hour and a half for us to get rid of the majority of the water and these videos are from when we were quite a long way into sorting it...they don't look particularly 'shocking' but an hour previously the whole apartment block was swimming.

We both really feel for our boawab, Nasr, who lives under the apartment block. Our apartment is on the corner of a road where the level is lowest, and so all the water gathers here. There are no drains and so water just sits around until it evaportes. The problem is that when the low level of the street overflows, it overflows to underneath our apartment...right into where the boawab lives. Apparently he has managed to do a really good job of damming the area so it didn't get too bad, but I imagine he was a rather unhappy guy last night. We'll see if we can find him later today and give him some extra money to help him out.

This morning we managed to find a news story showing that indeed the storm caused problems all over Cairo. http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/hail-storm-greater-cairo We knew it would affact the traffic as with no drains, the roads just turn into huge puddles. This morning a lot of the water on the street has evaporated and hopefully it will be all gone by this evening from most parts of the city. I wonder if there will be any more news stories on whether the water caused problems for the poorest people for Cairo whose homes and belongings will not be weather-proof.