Living without being connected to the internet for a week

The Lahovice interchange south of Prague where the ring road crosses the main road south from Prague city centre. The top photo is how it should be; the bottom photo is how it was on Monday 3rd March
The Lahovice interchange south of Prague where the ring road crosses the main road south from Prague city centre. The top photo is how it should be; the bottom photo is how it was on Monday 3rd March 2013

Last Monday evening (3rd June), just as I was uploading photographs to illustrate a draft blog post about the serious flooding we were experiencing in Prague, our connection to the internet died. I soon discovered that the cause of the problem was that our landline phone was also dead – our broadband internet connection is via the landline.

Awaking on Tuesday morning, to find that we still did not have a functioning internet connection, I contacted Gordon the Church Treasurer using my mobile phone, to explain the problem. Although the contract with our service provider O2, is in my name, the monthly bill is sent electronically to Gordon, for him to settle directly from the Church account. Gordon assured me that O2 had an English-speaking helpline and he would contact them and let me know the outcome.

When Gordon contacted O2, the English-speaking helpline offered a recorded message saying that ‘no English-speaking operators were available’, whilst the Czech helpline, upon entering our phone number, produced another recorded message saying that there were ‘technical issues in our area’ but with no indication as to when these ‘technical issues’ might be resolved. The only contact Gordon or I have had from O2 was a Czech text message to my mobile phone last Friday afternoon, promising that compensation for loss of service will be included in next month’s bill.

Having no internet access in my office in the Chaplaincy Flat for six days, has been utterly frustrating. It has also made me very conscious of how reliant I am upon being able to send and receive emails, at little more than the click of a mouse.

But it isn’t just the restrictions that this situation has placed upon me, but also the expectations of those I serve. The assumption that if someone sends me an email, they will receive a prompt reply. Within a couple of days, I had a phone call on my mobile from one of the congregation, most surprised that I hadn’t replied to his email – a simple request for a contact name and phone number to which I would have normally have replied within a few hours.

Fortunately, the purchase of a new laptop computer just over a year ago, has meant that I have managed to make a connection with the internet from time to time, by going to various local bar-restaurants more frequently than normal 🙂 in order to avail myself of their wifi. So I’ve learned to write emails and save them in my drafts folder, and then send them once I get to the pub! But it isn’t the most ideal way to work. Honestly!

Sybille has a fairly common response whenever I ask her something. If she doesn’t immediately know the answer to my question, then she firmly tells me to ‘google it!’ But of course, I cannot ‘google it’, if we have no internet connection. Likewise, when compiling the ‘Weekly Bulletin’ for Sunday worship this past week, I couldn’t click onto the Church of England website and copy and paste the Collect of the Day – I ended up typing it word by word from a book instead. And trying to update the Chaplaincy website 🙁

All along, we have assumed that the ‘technical issues’ to which O2 referred in their recorded message, related to the serious flooding of recent days – that flood-water had got into their system somewhere. So when on Saturday morning, I met Jana who lives on the ground floor of our apartment block, I asked her if she had the same problems with phone and internet as we do. I was surprised when she said she had experienced no interruption to service at all.

Then yesterday evening, about an hour before I got back from Brno from officiating at our regular monthly evening service there, Sybille decided to ask Kamila who lives across the second floor landing from us, if her phone and internet were working. She too, had not had any problems. Even better, Kamila kindly gave Sybille the log-in details to her wifi network, to allow us to piggyback onto her system until O2 get around to resolving their ‘technical difficulties in our area’. So after six long days, both Sybille and I are finally back online.

Kamila’s network only works in our sitting room so I’ve had to temporarily migrate from my office, to the dining table. But her service provider, who also seem to be used by many others in our immediate neighbourhood, say they only need an existing phone landline, in order to provide broadband internet. Therefore, when we do finally get a functioning landline once again, O2 will promptly lose a customer. But when that will be is anyone’s guess. By the time I post this, our landline will have been dead for a whole seven days, and still counting 🙁

Prague Floods – June 2013

This was written and should have been posted late in the evening of Monday 3rd June. However, as I was uploading the photographs, the internet connection to the Chaplaincy Flat died, along with the landline phone. Nearly four days later, we are still without internet or phone. Our provider O2, tells us in a recorded message that they have ‘technical issues in our area’, with no information as to when these ‘technical issues’ will be resolved. We assume that floodwater has got into their system somewhere. I have finally managed to complete this post using the wifi connection in Bar-Restaurace U Topolu whilst eating my lunch 🙂

Don't try walking or parking your car here © Ricky Yates
Don’t try walking or parking your car here © Ricky Yates

I have previously written on this blog, about flooding in Prague. I wrote that post from a historical perspective and illustrated it with some photographs of flood level markers that can be found on several buildings near to the Vltava River, as flows through the centre of Prague. At the end of my post, I remarked that, as serious flooding seems to have occurred with one hundred year intervals, and the last very serious floods were in 2002, I didn’t expect there to be another occurrence during my lifetime. That was until the events of the past few days.

As well as being cold and miserable, as the weather has been throughout most of May, during the last week it has also been raining pretty consistently too. The inevitable consequence has been a rise in river levels which reached dangerous heights over the past forty-eight hours. This was the scene that greeted us after we walked down to the side of the Vltava after Church on Sunday morning. Normally you can walk along here and there is reserved parking for customers of the Botel Albatross in the distance – hence the ‘P’ sign sticking out of the water.

 

 

 Flooded road underpass at Podbaba © Ricky Yates
Flooded road underpass at Podbaba © Ricky Yates

Just beyond the Podbaba tram terminus, on our way home to the Chaplaincy Flat, we were greeted with this view, with the main road completely blocked because of flooding in the underpass beneath the Prague-Dresden railway line. I should add that this flooding has got considerably deeper in the past twenty-four hours.

Flood defences erected on Kampa Island as seen from Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates
Flood defences erected on Kampa Island as seen from Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

We returned to the city centre later on Sunday afternoon, to get an idea of how severe the flooding was likely to be. At that point in time, it was still possible to walk across Charles Bridge from where I took this photograph which shows the first flood defences having already been erected on Kampa Island. In the foreground, one of the wooden barriers which are meant to protect the buttresses of the bridge, is almost completely submerged.

The photographs that follow were taken by me this morning, Monday 3rd June. I hope they help to illustrate the flood situation as it currently is. Obviously, the situation is fluid if you will excuse my bad pun.

Malostranská Metro Station surrounded by flood barriers © Ricky Yates
Malostranská Metro Station surrounded by flood barriers © Ricky Yates

Whilst we were travelling back into the centre of Prague on Sunday afternoon, we heard (and understood !!!) an announcement in Czech, that a a sizeable section of the Metro was being closed until further notice. Basically, any station near the Vltava River has been closed, with flood barriers erected around the entrance, to try to prevent any part of the system being inundated, as here at Malostranská.

The Vltava at full force © Ricky Yates
The Vltava at full force © Ricky Yates

Some indication of the strength of flow in the Vltava.

The Kafka Museum at risk of being inundated © Ricky Yates
The Kafka Museum at risk of being inundated © Ricky Yates
Flood defences and Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates
Flood defences and Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

Flood defences were in place all alongside the most vulnerable parts of the historic city centre.

Protecting the antique shop with sandbags © Ricky Yates

And around the corner, they were busy filling more sandbags!

Charles Bridge without tourists! © Ricky Yates
Charles Bridge without tourists! © Ricky Yates

Whilst we had been able to walk across Charles Bridge on Sunday afternoon, later that evening, it was closed to the public. Here the fire service, aided by a mobile crane, are trying to remove large trees and other debris building up against the bridge parapets.

Flood defences cannot save these buildings adjacent to Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates
Flood defences cannot save these buildings adjacent to Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

Some buildings that are so close to the Vltava cannot be protected from flooding such as these in the photograph above or this riverside bar in the photograph below.

Flooded riverside bar © Ricky Yates
Flooded riverside bar © Ricky Yates

Nor will boats be mooring here for sometime to come!

Don't try mooring here for a few days © Ricky Yates
Don’t try mooring here for a few days © Ricky Yates

 

Flooding in Prague

The height of flooding in Prague over the last 300 years © Sybille Yates

Prague is a beautiful city. One of the reasons it is so beautiful is being situated either side of the River Vltava. However, with the beauty of the riverside location comes the inherent danger of flooding. Unfortunately, over the centuries, this is something to which Prague has not been immune.

The picture on the left is of the wall of a building in Mala Strana, just south of Charles Bridge, and shows the height reached by floodwaters on several occasions during the last 300 years. Bearing in mind that I am quite tall, (1.87m or 6’ 1½”), and that where I am standing is well above the normal river level, it does illustrate the immensity and devastating nature of the flooding that engulfed Prague as recently as August 2002.

Apparently, there is an historic Prague expression, “The 100 Year Water”. As you can see, if you do a simple mathematical calculation, there actually was a 112 year gap between the last major flooding of 1890 before the flooding of 2002. And whilst the expression has no scientific evidence to support it, going further back, there were 106 years between the floods of 1784 and those of 1890.

Flood level marker 1890 © Ricky Yates

Flood level marker for 1890 with normal river level in the background © Ricky Yates

The two photographs above show the location elsewhere in Mala Strana, of another marker of the height of the serious flooding in 1890. Here I was able to get a backwater/mill stream of the River Vltava into my picture which I hope will indicate the difference between the normal river height and where the floodwaters rose to 120 years ago.

In the floods of 1890, three arches of Charles Bridge were destroyed as shown in the historic photograph below. Fortunately, the floods of 2002 did not destroy any part of the historic bridge though they did leave it seriously weakened. Over the last two years, major renovation work has been undertaken to it, both above and below the waters of the Vltava, to strengthen it and restore it to its former glory. Hopefully, this work will be completed in the next few months, thus allowing locals and visitors to walk freely across it without having to negotiate their way around scaffolding and fenced off sections.

As for “The Hundred Year Water”, I don’t think I will be around to witness it in the early years of the 22nd century!

The damage caused to Charles Bridge by the floods of 1890. Image source; in public domain therefore assuming fair use.