Boss, what a night! I was chilling at Fane's terrace, sipping a beer and commenting on the match, when suddenly the sky went dark like it was the apocalypse. I haven't seen a storm like this since I had that incident with my BMW a few years ago, when a cherry tree fell on the hood. Anyway, I found out this morning what happened in Bucharest and Ilfov - hell on earth, bro!
Listen up: 19 nowcasting warnings were issued in 12 hours. Torrential rains, gales, hail - they wreaked havoc. Firefighters responded to nearly 1,000 situations, bro! 45 flooded houses, 35 yards, 30 cellars and basements, 17 blocked streets. They also took down 960 trees and 48 poles. Yeah, you heard right - almost a thousand trees on the ground. Lucky for me, Tyson, my dog, got scared of the storm and slept in my bed, otherwise the hail would've got him.
And worse: a poor guy died after a tree fell on the van he was in. I feel like crying, bro, but also like cursing. How can you sit calmly in your car and have a tree fall on your head? Is this a country or a joke?
Public transport? Paralyzed. Metro - Victoriei 2 station temporarily closed. STB - 32 lines blocked, including 1, 5, 7, 10, 11, and so on, a list as long as your finger. Trams aren't running, buses are slaloming through branches. They made a new line, 641, between Piața Presei and Ghencea, to pick up people. Mioara, my wife, waited an hour and a half at the stop until she caught a 232 to take her to Lidl. She told me she came home soaking wet and with her nerves shot.
The underground parking at the Arcul de Triumf Stadium, where Dinamo plays (may Gică Dinamovistul die of spite), flooded again. The administrators jumped like they were burned: "The public agenda was dominated by posts about the graffiti regulation and protocol meetings." Hahaha, man, what can I say? While those guys are busy with drawings on walls, the sewage system is in shambles. "Bucharest's problem is not that there are too many drawings on walls. The problem is that people go without hot water and heating for months, that the sewage networks aren't maintained." See, that's how people who've seen reality talk.
Mayor General Ciprian Ciucu said it's "an unprecedented situation" and blamed "the heavy inheritance." Oh dear, what a cliché! It's always someone else's fault, right? He also said "you can't put an umbrella over Bucharest." Yeah, bro, you can't, but you can clean the drains, cut the dead trees, build infrastructure. It's not rocket science, it's common sense.
The weather warnings are still in effect: Yellow code until July 2, 10:00 AM, and Orange code for strong gales, hail, and lightning, until July 2, 10:00 AM. IGSU advises us not to go outside. Me, I said: I'm staying home, watching football, and drinking some plum brandy. What am I gonna do, let the hail get me?
And the Bac! Yeah, bro, the Baccalaureate exam was also turned upside down. Students who couldn't make it to the mandatory test (Math or History) due to the weather will be able to take the exam at 1:00 PM, with the backup subject. The Math subjects will be published on edu.ro at 3:00 PM. Good, at least that. The test had already been postponed a day due to the heatwave. What can you do, the weather does what it wants.
For now, I'm praying no more storms come, because there's no one to pay for the damages. Who pays? Us, Romanians, out of our pockets. Let me tell Mioara not to leave the house until the orange code passes, because better to miss a day of work than to have a tree fall on her head.
