When you live in a place that's well known for a specific type of weather, you pretty much have two choices. Either you deal with it as well as you can, or you move away. As a lifelong Chicago resident, one of the first things people not from this area usually want to talk to me about is Chicago winters.
From a lifetime of experience, I can tell you that sometimes they're mild, and other times, they bury us in snow and then proceed to ice us over. Still other times, we get hit with serious blizzards, of the type where you get snowed in wherever you're at, and you'd better hope it's warm and dry because the roads are nigh impassable. The city has warming centers that open up that people can go to, but it's still a regional struggle while winter is busy biting back.
Now, the city of Hat Yai, Thailand has a much different common precipitation problem: Flooding. While there have been several bad floods causing loss of life and wrecking homes, businesses, and livelihoods in the past, the one that hit Hat Yai (and also ravaged other parts of Southeast Asia) in late November 2025 was especially bad. There's a reason folks have been referring to it as "a 300-year flood."
How bad was it? In just one 72-hour period, the city recorded a record 630mm of rainfall. That's over two feet, if you're keeping track. There are a number of factors affecting why the city is so prone to flooding, but think about where you call home. Presumably, if it's a place you love, where you've put down roots, it'd probably take a lot to get you to move.
But impassable roads have very much been a thing in Hat Yai as well, as massive flooding has put a lot of the city underwater. How do you rescue people when the city is underwater? I mean, if you have access to PWCs, they make a lot of sense, don't they? Even if you haven't ridden one before, Thailand loves motorbikes, so adapting those skills to a PWC wouldn't be difficult at all.
Rescuers have been traveling into the city from all over the place, including as far north as Chiang Mai, to try to help those affected by the monumental flooding in Hat Yai. It's an honorable, admirable thing they're trying to do, helping out those who need it in an unfamiliar place.
But unfortunately, some folks haven't seen it that way. The Bangkok Post reports that one man was arrested after admitting to firing shots in the vicinity of would-be PWC rescuers. And Thai PBS World reported that a full rescue team from Chiang Mai suspended its operations after three separate instances of shots being fired near the entirely volunteer PWC-piloting fleet.
To be completely clear, so far, no one has been reported to have actually been shot while trying to rescue anyone. And some folks say the shots were fired upward into the air, trying to get the attention of rescuers; not actually at the rescuers or their vehicles. But some others say the jet skis are noisy, and that complaints of unnecessary wakes caused by people unfamiliar with the area has exacerbated the flooding into some buildings.
Plus, after days of flooding and all the stress residents are going through, tempers are almost certainly on edge. But still; these weren't news stories I expected to read, let alone be writing about.
And honestly, I'm not sure what to say here. If you're the person shooting in this situation, you've made your choice. You don't need me (or anyone else) to tell you that's probably a bad idea if you want to actually get rescued. You probably already know that, and no amount of anyone saying that is going to change your mind. I can only hope that this isn't the choice that most people would make in this situation.
