Author: Li Haopeng
As of July 23, the flooding in Zhengzhou has receded, and the urban production and daily life are gradually recovering.
However, various rescue vehicles shuttling on the roads and the intermittent sirens of ambulances and fire trucks coming from above the city are still stimulating the nerves of everyone, as if to make people remember the cruel test that this city has experienced in the past few days.
Since July, Zhengzhou’s meteorological department has occasionally issued severe convective weather forecasts. However, it was not until the 14th that Zhengzhou had a heavy rain, which lasted shortly with a small range and did not cause greater harm. On the evening of the 18th, another heavy rain came, and the heavy rain continued until noon on the 20th.
As I had an important business trip on the 20th, I bought a high-speed rail ticket and chose the most conservative way of travel.
At 2 pm, I took a car from the company to the train station, preparing to take the high-speed rail at 3:36 pm to Guangzhou to attend the group’s half-year meeting. Due to the heavy rain and flooded roads, this 20-minute trip took 45 minutes this time, and two sections of the road had already submerged the middle position of the car wheel, which left me with a deep impression.
Entering the waiting hall of the train station, under the crowded heads, the row of red fonts on the central display screen is very eye-catching – all ordinary trains are delayed or canceled, and the duration of delays is rarely less than 10 hours.
Only when I arrived at the waiting room on the second floor did I realize that the delay phenomenon was even more severe, and almost all high-speed trains were delayed. The train I was going to take was delayed for 4 hours and 37 minutes. The waiting room was full of crowds stranded, and they were anxiously discussing the weather and passing time, with few people paying attention to the heavy rain outside the window, let alone the Jingguang Tunnel (the hardest-hit area of this heavy rain) 300 meters away.
At 5:02 pm, my phone suddenly received an emergency notice from the Zhengzhou flood control and drought relief headquarters to upgrade the flood control emergency response to level I. This was the first time I had seen such a high flood control level in my life. After checking online, I realized the severity of the problem. Immediately, I arranged to close the charging and swapping stations, stop the battery-swapping service, and require all station staff to stay on duty and not shift on the same day. At the same time, I also timely reported the flood conditions to the group’s supervisory leaders and safety supervision departments, established a WeChat group for responding to heavy rainfall, and discussed and negotiated various emergency response plans.At 6:20 pm, there was a leak in the ceiling of the train station, and the power supply of the waiting room I was in was cut off. News of trains being suspended spread among the crowd, but the train station had not yet officially announced it, and most people were still anxiously waiting for their trains. Considering the safety issue, I followed the crowd out of the waiting room, and by then the water in the corridor had already submerged my feet.
When I reached the end of the corridor near the escalator, I stood on tiptoe and looked at the platform outside, only to find that the rain had completely flooded the train station platform.
The amount of rain exceeded my imagination, and I immediately decided to change my plan and stay in Zhengzhou to deal with the flood situation. It was later revealed that during this period, the heavy rainfall caused a large amount of water to pour into the underground tunnel, rushing towards the platform, and trapping a large number of passengers in the subway train of Line 5.
At around 7 pm, after completing the ticket refund, I walked out of the waiting hall, planned to cross the station square, but was stopped by security guards. They informed me that the water on Jingguang Road had exceeded one meter, and the underpass was severely flooded. All public transportation had been suspended, and all passengers were strictly prohibited from crossing Jingguang Road.
This meant that all passengers had to take refuge in the train station, and the 1st floor waiting hall of less than 1000 square meters had to accommodate several thousand passengers. For everyone, this was bound to be a sleepless night. At the same time, the rainfall in the High-tech Zone continued, and due to severe flooding, many parents feedbacked in class groups that they could not leave their homes. Considering the safety risks, I decided to let my son, who was in kindergarten, stay in school. The situation at the battery swap station also made me anxious. I requested the staff staying in the station to report the situation every half an hour, while I reported the situation to the group every hour. This rhythmic process continued until around 6 am on the 21st.
At 7 am on the 21st, the rainfall began to decrease, and at 8 am, the rainfall basically stopped. However, the weather forecast showed that there would still be heavy rain on that day. After comprehensively evaluating the situation, I made the decision to evacuate the employees in the battery swap station as soon as possible to prevent another round of heavy rainfall.
I also planned to leave the train station. As all public transportation had been suspended, I could only try to call a taxi or a ride-sharing car. After trying all the ride-sharing apps without success, I gave up. Not only did no vehicles accept the order, but also there was almost no network signal (heavy rainfall caused most communication base stations to stop service), which meant that the shared bicycles could not be used either. I could only walk, hoping to run into other means of transportation on the way. The road was full of water, submerged vehicles, fallen trees, and collapsed roads, making walking extremely difficult.
The journey of 12 kilometers eventually took more than 6 hours. When I got back home, the community was also in a mess, with no water, electricity or elevators, and the garage was flooded.
The whole city was basically paralyzed, and this was an unusual and major disaster.
This sudden danger brought huge disasters and losses to the city. About 120,000 new energy vehicles in Zhengzhou were also severely affected by the heavy rainstorm.
As an ordinary citizen living in Zhengzhou and a practitioner in the new energy vehicle industry, I deeply felt the rapidness of the disaster and the insignificance of mankind in experiencing the process of the disaster. More importantly, I deeply felt that in order to better cope with the disaster, we must make sufficient efforts in our daily life, as the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”.
My job is to operate and service new energy vehicle charging stations, which, like new energy vehicle charging piles, belong to the category of new infrastructure. We provide energy supplement services for tens of thousands of new energy taxis, online car-hailing services, and logistics vehicles, and are an important guarantee for urban transportation.
As a typical electricity service industry, we have to frequently deal with various mechanical and electrical equipment, especially in rainy and humid weather, which poses a great safety risk. Therefore, we have formulated the strictest management system and operating standards to ensure the safety of employees in various states. In addition, for the uncontrollable traffic safety, we have also specifically stipulated the requirements for disaster weather shift handover, and equipped each charging station with emergency supplies such as charging treasures, convenient food, and drinking water for possible use.
These regulations and preparations may seem ordinary, but they played an important role in this heavy rainstorm disaster, ensuring the safety and health of employees and avoiding property losses at the stations. In response to this heavy rainstorm, we also formulated an emergency activation plan for charging stations to ensure the restoration of charging services as soon as possible and to guarantee public transportation.
By July 22, after a comprehensive investigation, none of our company’s charging stations had experienced flooding, thanks to the special waterproof treatment and high foundation measures at the charging stations. We resumed the charging service of the first charging station at noon that day, which was basically the fastest restoration of urban charging and replacement infrastructure in Zhengzhou.
According to reports, as of noon on the 23rd, major charging station operators including State Grid had resumed about 50% of charging stations, which can basically meet the needs of the public. According to a report by Charging Post, some charging networks of Star Charge began to gradually resume on July 22 and safety and normal functional inspections were carried out on each station one by one. By noon on July 23, TELD had resumed operation of 41 charging stations in Zhengzhou, which can meet the needs of the public.
Damaged charging piles in heavy rain can also be repaired or compensated through charging pile property insurance. It is believed that the charging and swapping network of Zhengzhou City will be fully restored after a few days.
With the advancement of China’s new energy vehicle development strategy, the production and sales scale of new energy vehicles are constantly expanding, and the penetration rate is constantly increasing. The new energyization of various transportation fields is becoming more and more apparent. The construction of charging and swapping infrastructure as a basic guarantee capability is also becoming more and more important. An efficient, safe, and convenient charging and swapping network is indispensable for any city.
In the current heavy rain disaster, almost all charging and swapping infrastructure in Zhengzhou City has been cut off from power. Of course, a large proportion of this is actively powered off for safety reasons, which can be quickly restored. However, many facilities in low-lying areas have suffered significant damage and cannot be quickly restored. This problem needs to be minimized in the future development process.
As a witness to this heavy rainstorm, I would like to provide some suggestions to the government and industry practitioners.
First of all, at the government level, charging and swapping infrastructure should be raised to the level of overall city planning and put at the height of the city’s main functional orientation. It is necessary to encourage the development of various technical routes such as charging and swapping. When formulating specific development goals, industry regulatory authorities should not blindly pursue quantitative targets, but also pay attention to quality control and structural issues. Key areas, core routes, and various scenarios should be fully covered. There should be a normalized management mechanism, reward and punishment mechanism, and risk control mechanism to guide the healthy development of the industry.
Secondly, at the industry level, it is recommended to establish a city-level industry association organization to build a platform for industry communication and exchange, strengthen industry self-regulation, avoid disorderly competition, promote industry development, and provide support services for the government to promote the development of charging facilities and effective control.
Thirdly, at the operator level, as the operator, it is necessary to control the quality of products, construction, and operation services; establish and improve various operation and management systems, continuously improve operational service levels, and improve user satisfaction; enhance safety awareness, do a good job in various risk prevention and control and emergency response mechanisms, especially to enhance disaster prevention and reduction awareness, strengthen daily drills and preparation for emergencies, and ensure the safety of personnel and property.
It can be foreseen that various extreme weather will continue to occur for a considerable period of time in the future. For us, evasion is not realistic, but only facing and adapting. This requires changes from the daily level, including disaster prevention and reduction awareness training, high-level infrastructure construction and operation management, and post-disaster response. Only in this way can the impact of disasters be minimized, various losses reduced, and the safety of urban transportation guaranteed to the greatest extent.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.