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“Illam Thedi Vellam”: Dravidian Model Exposed As OMR Gets Inundated Severely

The Commune

Despite repeated warnings from weather experts, Chennai’s Outer Ring Road (OMR) was among the hardest-hit areas during the recent floods, highlighting the city’s infrastructure vulnerabilities. Knee-deep water inundated the arterial road, causing severe traffic disruptions and impacting businesses.

Weathermen, freelance bloggers, and the IMD have warned of heavy rains in Chennai for quite some time. And yet, the Dravidian model of governance did not seem to heed this warning.

Chennai saw heavy rains from late evening on 14 October 2024. At the time of publishing this article, the rains are continuing to pour all over the city. Weather experts predicted low pressure as it is NEM season (North East Monsoon), with rains expected to continue pouring until 17/18 October 2024.

As a precaution, people living in the low-lying areas of Velachery, Pallikaranai (taking lessons from 2023 floods) parked their vehicles (cars mostly) before the rains began.

Let’s examine the inundation that has started in various parts of the city. Ironically, the flooding is just after a few hours of rain.

OMR seemed to be the worst affected, with nearly knee/hip-deep water on the roads. Here are some videos circulating on social media.

Kotivakkam near Thiruvanmiyur also saw flooding to a large extent.

A refrigerator was seen floating over the flood waters near Kandanchavadi in Perungudi near OMR.

These were the scenes from Navalur in OMR after the spell of rains on the night of 14 October 2024.

In this video report by Thanthi TV, several residents and people travelling that side stated that it had always been like this since 2015 in OMR. One commuter seen driving a bike is seen complaining about the administration. Some IT employees who were given WFH were asked to go to their office following a power cut at home. They were seen stranded on the roads. It is reported that nearly 100 vehicles on the road in OMR had switched off and had to be pushed by the commuters themselves. Commuters are seen pushing their two-wheelers in the hip-deep water. An auto driver stated that despite being in demand from customers, he could not drive as he risked switching off the vehicle because of the rising water level. He said, “Had they taken some precautions to ensure the water did not stagnate, this wouldn’t have been so bad.”

It is noteworthy that lot of metro construction work is also taking place.

ANother commuter stated that the flood had inundated the entire stretch from Taramani

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