On Monday morning, people in and around Velachery, a low-lying area in the heart of the city, were hurriedly removing cars ranging from Nano, BMW to Audi, from their parking slots to find a place in the busy Pallikaranai flyover to park the vehicles. This is to save the cars from the heavy rain as predicted for the city by the Met department for the next couple of days.

In some of the suburbs, Chennaiites are a buying spree of essential items to be stored during the rains.

Meanwhile, the State government has taken precautionary measures to ensure that the situation is under control during the floods.

In the last three instances — 2015, 2021 and 2023 — the city was hit by heavy rains that caused flooding of several areas and left hundreds of vehicles submerged. Unable to come out of their houses, people panicked with no supply of essential items. Places such as Velachery, Sholinganallur and Perungudi bore the brunt of the floods in the past.

The Chennai police officials fined the car-owners for parking their vehicles on the flyover. However, the owners won’t mind spending a few hundreds to save the cars worth a few lakh.

Low pressure

The south-west monsoon’s withdrawal has been pretty fast and is likely to end in the next four days and the north-east monsoon rain may begin very soon.

“A low-pressure area is likely to form over central parts of south Bay of Bengal around Monday. It is likely to become a well-marked low-pressure area and move north-west towards northern Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh coast during the subsequent 48 hours,” the India Meteorological Department (IMD), said.

The Met department warned that on October 15 and 16, Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Ranipet, Tiruvannamalai and Puducherry may get heavy to very heavy rain.

Chief Minister MK Stalin, on Monday, reviewing the State’s monsoon preparedness, directed authorities to issue an advisory allowing employees of IT companies in Chennai and neighbouring districts to work from home during October 15-18.

In its forecast issued on Sunday, the IMD had said that coastal and northern districts of Tamil Nadu are likely to experience heavy to very heavy rains during October 14-17.

Battle-ready

The Commissioner of Metropolitan Chennai Corporation said that 990 pumps and 57 tractors equipped with pump-sets are ready to remove rainwater that may accumulate in Metropolitan Chennai Corporation areas.

Further, 36 motorised boats have been placed in vulnerable areas; while 46 tonnes of bleaching powder, 25 tonnes of lime powder and Phenyl are stocked in required quantity; 169 relief centres with adequate kitchens; 59 JCBs and 272 wood cutters for rescue operations; 176 water pumps, 130 generators and 115 trucks are ready to be deployed.

District Collectors of Chengalpattu, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur also gave details on various measures to be taken to tackle the heavy rain.