Paul's Page

Whoever said it doesn’t rain in the desert is a complete LIAR. Today we were sitting in our Head of Department meeting which started at 1:00pm. By 2:30pm it had started to sprinkle a little and by about 3:00pm we had to go inside because it had started to rain in ernest. By 3:15pm it was outright POURING. About this time I got a call to go to the artistic tent because there was a water problem.

Earlier in the city we had gotten a complaint that a drain that was under the floor was giving off sewage smelling gas. So we took a piece of plywood and caulked it down to contain the smell. When I got to the artistic tent the floor was taken up over the sealed drain and there was not about 5 inches of standing water over the top of the drain. Please note that the floor is only about 7-8 inches above the floor overall.

So we pulled the plywood up with the hopes that the the drain would start running and of course because of the quantity of water overall in the system nothing really happened at all. Shortly after that I got a call to go into the Big Top where there was now water flowing over the curb of the big top and onto and over our backstage floor. So we started scrambling. Pumps were fetched and pluged in drains were opened up where possible and nothing was moving. So we ended up cancelling our 4:00pm show because we were littlearlly flooded out and we started trying to get the lighting instruments that normally sit on the floor out of the 4 inches of water they were sitting in. Right now I can hear the hair driers being used in the tents to continue the drying process of the plugs and instruments.

So we were starting to win the war outside of the tent and were about to move full force with the pumps inside the Big Top, we had litterally lowered the pump under the stage when all of a sudden the drains started flowing. I mean they were flowing fast and what was about 4 inches of water in the big top was gone in about 2 minutes. We were all standing there shocked and wondering why all of a sudden this happened. To this point now tonight we still don’t know what opened up and got rid of all the water. We don’t know if someone somewhere threw a switch and opened something up or turned on a pump or if a trashbag cover the drain finally gave way but all of a sudden we were fighting the water and the next second it was virtually gone.

Right now we have a big pumper truck on site should we run into another heavy rain storm like that but let’s hope it doesn’t happen.

So when in Dubai if someone tells you it never rains call them a LIAR. When I get some pictures back I will be sure to put them up on my web site for all to see the flooding.

Hope everyone is doing well. Me and my wet feet are about to go home tonight.

ttys