Chapter 13 Water and Power Cuts
Gu Yanxu had just finished showering when he discovered the water was off. After drying himself off and getting dressed, he went out to the living room.
I heard them complaining.
"Now we have both a power outage and a water outage."
Looking outside, all they could see was pitch black. Their phone notifications were filled with typhoon and rainstorm warnings.
Open Baidu Tieba, and it's full of content and videos about the torrential rain.
In another video, a man was standing on the roof of a bungalow, with rainwater already up to his calves.
In the video, he cried and shouted, "Is there anyone who can save me? My house is flooded."
The video of him pleading for help was widely shared by netizens.
The government has also dispatched troops for rescue operations, but in the torrential rain, they are sometimes too busy to help themselves, making the rescue extremely difficult.
Bai Tang guessed that since the bungalows had already been flooded, the first floor of their apartment complex must have been completely submerged.
Sure enough, the owners' group chat had 99+ messages.
"What should I do? My house is flooded. Can someone come and save me?"
"My family is the same. We knocked on the door several times, but no one let us stay. Our family of five is now living in the stairwell."
"Water is starting to seep into the second floor too. Is your property management really not going to do anything about it?"
The community property manager is pretending to be dead in the group chat.
He was also helpless, as he shared an apartment with others in room 1001 of building 5.
The government can't manage them right now, so a mere property manager like him has even less to do.
The police station was right across the street, but the police inside were busy moving things to the higher-ups, so there was no one to deal with them.
The entire city is now completely without power and water.
Bai Tang and the others felt that the signal was probably going to drop soon, because the messages in the group chat kept interrupting.
The rainwater had already flooded the second floor, but even if the second floor wasn't completely flooded, no one dared to continue living there now.
Who knows if the rainwater will suddenly rise while people are sleeping and completely flood the second floor?
Moreover, it's only a matter of time before the second floor is completely flooded.
Anyway, as long as no one dares to go up to the 20th floor to cause trouble, Bai Tang and the others will stay out of it and not get involved.
In the apocalypse, it's best not to be a pushover. They continued to train and spar as usual to improve their physical fitness.
The day after the torrential rain, the outside world had turned into a vast ocean.
After waking up, Bai Tang took out her phone, intending to check if the official channels had released any news, only to find that her phone had no signal.
I got up, dressed, and went to the living room where they were all there.
When Gu Yanxu saw her come out, he walked over and said, "There's no signal now, so I'm planning to give each of them a walkie-talkie so they can contact each other immediately if anything happens."
After distributing the walkie-talkies, they heard someone knocking on the iron gate outside.
Bai Tang and Gu Yanxu put down their walkie-talkies and went to the door to check.
It turned out to be a middle-aged man knocking. When he saw someone coming down from upstairs, he said impatiently, "Who gave you permission to install this gate? Don't you know you can't just install things in the community?"
Gu Yanxu said directly, "I developed this entire community. I can install whatever I want. It's none of your business. Who do you think you are?"
The middle-aged man immediately cowered, realizing that most of the residents in this community were either rich or powerful.
With a fawning expression, he said, "I'm the property manager of this community. I'm here to inform you that the first and second floors are flooded by rainwater."
The toilets and sewers are starting to back up. Those upstairs, please stop draining water. Also, please inform the four households upstairs.
Bai Tang nodded and said, "Okay."
Seeing that she agreed quickly, the property manager hurriedly went downstairs to try to notify the people in other buildings.
Bai Tang and Gu Yanxu returned to the house and told the others about the rainwater backflow outside.
"Does that mean we can't take a shower?"
"Without water and electricity, how are you supposed to take a shower?"
"Oh, right, I forgot to turn off the water."
Bai Tang looked at them and said, "It's okay. Xiao Yang and I stocked up on a little bit of water and a water tank. We can install it in the bathroom, but we can only take a bath in the tub."
"The wastewater can't be discharged downstream anymore, so we'll just store it in our space."
"Also, we can't flush the toilet anymore. We've stocked up on a lot of cat litter at home, so we'll just have to make do with that. We'll each take two bags to use in the meantime."
"Sigh, when will things get better?" Lin Zhou sighed from the side.
Gu Yanxu said to them, "It might be ten years, it might be twenty years, it's okay as long as we're all together."
"The boss is right. If we're together, there's no obstacle we can't overcome."
After finishing their conversation, they got down to business. Since the toilet and sewers were no longer usable, they planned to seal off the bathroom toilet and kitchen sewers to prevent foul air and sewage from rising up from below.
Take out the cement and sand that you had previously stored in the space, mix the cement, sand and water in the correct proportions, and then seal all the drain pipe openings.
After finishing with room 2001, I went to room 2002 to seal the drain opening, and then went upstairs to prepare to seal the pipe openings of the other four apartments.
Although those houses were not inhabited, they contained stored supplies that could be released outside. Bai Tang was worried that if the sewer openings were not sealed, the stench would rise up and make the air in those houses smell bad, which would naturally affect the supplies stored inside.
The group quickly went upstairs to seal the drain opening.
Although they weren't professionals and their sealing efforts were rather ugly, nobody cared about aesthetics; as long as it blocked the stench coming from below, that was enough.
The remaining cement was returned to the space, as these materials had not been produced for a long time in the apocalypse.
For Bai Tang and his group, although they had stockpiled a lot of supplies, these things were still dwindling as they were used.
Although Bai Tang and his friends don't plan to build their own base, it doesn't mean they won't meet friends who do.
Since Bai Tang and the others won't need those things anyway, they can conveniently do their friends a favor.
In the apocalypse, the favors of a base commander are immense.
The outside temperature dropped, but the electricity and water supply remained intermittent because the floodwaters on the ground were accumulating more and more, and the power and water bureaus were simply unable to repair the equipment.
After the official warning of the major flood was issued, people were organized day and night for rescue and disaster relief.
However, the flood was too merciless, making their rescue efforts extremely difficult.
At this time, everyone was stuck at home, and social order hadn't broken down yet. But after a few more days, when the food stored at home was almost used up, people started breaking into homes and robbing people.
Social order is relatively normal now, after all, there is a police station across from their community.
Fortunately, the police station building across the street is more than ten stories high, and the floodwaters haven't reached the third floor yet. Their police station also has inflatable boats, but they only use them when absolutely necessary, because people's hearts are unpredictable, and there's no guarantee that someone won't attack the police and try to steal the inflatable boats.
However, under the temporary deterrence of the police station across the street, Bai Tang's neighborhood still appeared calm on the surface.