Opinion | Is Hong Kong going to let extreme weather rain on productivity?
With transport services largely available and several stores open during storms, it’s unclear why most white-collar workers need to stay home
I apologise if this offends anyone, but I feel obliged to ask if Hong Kong has become a city of wusses. Do we really have to close down much of the city every time there’s excessive rain?
The actual experience of recent days suggests we could be a lot more pragmatic in our approach. Take last week, for example. On both Monday and Tuesday, I had to travel from Hong Kong Island to the RTHK studio in Broadcast Drive to take part in a radio show. On Monday, with a red rainstorm alert, the trip was smooth as traffic was fairly light, though there was a bit of a build-up in the opposite direction.
When the show finished at 10pm, there was a cloudburst in Kowloon Tong. However, a taxi soon showed up to drive me to an MTR station nearby. The train service to Admiralty was operating normally.
On Tuesday, there was a black signal and almost no road traffic in either direction. There was another cloudburst at the end of the show, but the minibus and train soon did the trick. On both days, I got a bit wet, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary on a rainy day.