Field note · 20 January 2026

What to send after a pump station takes floodwater

Silt gets moved. Instruments drown. The photographs you take in the first hour are often the only chronology that will still exist on day three.

Hill rain above Batumi reaches the lower terrace quickly. A pump pit that was dry at shift change can be a brown lake by midnight. By the time a reconstruction desk can travel, someone has already started pumping silt because the city still needs water.

That is the right operational choice. It is a bad archival choice. The marks we would have photographed are gone.

In the first hour, if it is safe

Take photographs that include a known object for scale — a valve tag, a painted number, a doorway. Do not delete the “bad” frames; the EXIF times are the chronology. If a level instrument is still showing a number, photograph the display, then photograph the drowned cabinet later so we can see when it died.

Write, even on a phone note: which pump tripped first, who was on the stairs, whether the overflow was already running. Two operators will disagree later. A note written in the pit is worth more than a tidy statement on Friday.

What we can still use on day three

The first pictures. The last good level trace. The electricity trip times for the motors, which often survive in a different building. Gate logs if a neighbouring chamber has them. What we cannot use is a clean pit and a memory of “about midnight.”

If you think you will want a briefing, send those first pictures to yourself in a second place so they are not sitting only on one wet telephone.