Many residents turn flooded underpass into a picnic spot

The former is located on Dr Ambedkar College Road, while the latter, which connects Egmore High Road from EVR Periyar Salai was affected for the first time in the current spell. Many other localities were also submerged.

In North Chennai, Pattalam, Strahans Road, Stephenson Road, Demellows Road, Decastor Road, Syedenhams Road and adjoining residential lanes of Kargil Nagar (off Tiruvottiyur Road) were inundated. Water breached the ground floor residences. While many chose to remain at their residences despite being inundated, a few chose to reach the shelter homes run by Greater Chennai Corporation. 

Ganeshapuram subway drew boys and elders from the neighbourhood, as flooding has become an annual event there. Boys frolicked in the puddle and swam to both ends of the closed subway with abandon, keeping the policemen on duty on tenterhooks. The police had  to go after them, in wave after wave, to prevent ‘drownings’. Another set of youngsters who jaywalked on the railway track above, shot ‘selfies’ with floodwater as  their backdrop. Some were successful in capturing an occasional, long distance train or an EMU as well in their backdrop.  Edaraja, who works as an autorickshaw driver, had not taken his vehicle out due to the inundation. He was there with his nine-year-old son, making the latter pose in the water. “This is not something that you see daily, and we have gotten used to it. It gets flooded almost every year. They said it would happen when they repaired the subway and corrected the gradients, but to no avail. My son would love these pictures,” he said. 

An Electricity Board official, who was supervising a repair work in Pulianthope, was flooded with calls. When asked, the official maintained that they were trying to reinstate power at least by direct connection via overhead from pillar in places where underground cables were submerged in water. He cautioned that such a workaround might spell trouble if it snaps halfway through. He added that they had switched off the transformers as soon as inundation was reported. Power would be restored once the Corporation drained the water, he added.