Sweaty, thirsty summer ahead
Can the UAE's infrastructure no longer cope with the hordes of people arriving by the hour? First we learn that taps have run dry at the "upper class" (if you swap Buckingham Palace for a Bovis home, maybe) Arabian Ranches:
Mother of two, Mariyam Rezvan, who lives in the Al Saheel area of the sprawling Ranches, said she had no running water for five days.
"I'm sending my children to Mall of the Emirates to use the toilet, and to a friend's house so they can shower," Rezvan who owns a Dh2.3 million villa said.
And now Sharjah appears to be running out of electricity:
Sharjah: People living in Maysaloon are suffering from recurring power cuts and parents are using their air-conditioned cars as temporary homes to help their children beat the heat.
The electricity keeps getting cut off for very long periods since the past year, said a resident. "We wet the floor tiles and lie on them to keep cool during the hot afternoons," said C. Surendran, living on Street 25.
Time to start hoarding candles and bottled water.
Mother of two, Mariyam Rezvan, who lives in the Al Saheel area of the sprawling Ranches, said she had no running water for five days.
"I'm sending my children to Mall of the Emirates to use the toilet, and to a friend's house so they can shower," Rezvan who owns a Dh2.3 million villa said.
And now Sharjah appears to be running out of electricity:
Sharjah: People living in Maysaloon are suffering from recurring power cuts and parents are using their air-conditioned cars as temporary homes to help their children beat the heat.
The electricity keeps getting cut off for very long periods since the past year, said a resident. "We wet the floor tiles and lie on them to keep cool during the hot afternoons," said C. Surendran, living on Street 25.
Time to start hoarding candles and bottled water.
16 Comments:
Looks like I left the UAE just in time..
I used to live in Abu Shagara, in a horrid apartment known as The Sharjah Sh!thole. Power blackouts (technically brownouts, but temporary 100% loss of electricity) were common all summer. Being trapped in the lift for several hours isn't funny. I moved elsewhere as soon as possible.
And yet despite this obvious shortage of supply, developers continue to throw up towers in an already overpopulated district.
How does the UAE plan to provide enough electricity, and indeed to desalinate enough water, for the future enormous population? What about when the fossil fuel resources run low and become inordinately expensive?
Looks like situation just got worse. June a day away and I'm all jittery about last year's power outage on a Thursday, is it next? Before that happens, I'm chilling my beers, just in case I need to chill out on a Thursday or a Friday or a...any day :-)
Considering that Dubai and Sharjah are really humid
one of these might be a solution
BTW this deserves a video
@Grumpy goat
I remember days like that! I used to live in Sharjah before I moved to Dubai and during powercuts my grandmother would cool off in the bathtub while my sister and I would try and cool off with ice cubes. If my parents were home, we'd just go for a drive with the A/C on until power returned.
I think the UAE wants to make sure that they are at, or quite near to, maxiumum capacity in terms of providing electricity and water because having extra capacity would be costly if it wasn't being utilized. However, as this article shows, sometimes the demand increases too quickly and exceeds available supply, especially with the temperatures rising and everyone leaving their A/Cs on 24/7.
@unjane
I shall change my avatar just for you then :P
Unrelated, but internet censorship of many countries discussed on the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5024874.stm
SD, you are once more in the spotlight:)
New Dubai: Accurately recreating the Old (Third) World.
Can anyone spell "solar power, stupid"?
Shaper, you have the answer. In my first stint here the seventies we had frequent power cuts - nothing changes - so it was into the car with the a/c & radio on until power was restored.
"Creative" includes vlogs and phlogs and so on, and you have heaps of (great btw) videos up. However if that's not what you plan to be blogging mainly I can move you to UAE?
Btw SDD, nice pic of the totalled Lambo...i think i've often seen that guy cruising around and given his number plate i think he'll be up and running in a Ferrari soon enough
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Off topic:
Interesting read though http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060531/wl_mideast_afp/uaesocietynative_060531150126 . I hope that link comes out alright.
P.S. Secret Dubai, it would be nice if you had a chatbox on the page so we wouldn't have to threadjack to post stuff :)
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