EXCLUSIVEThe flooded housewives of Dubai: Chanel underwater, supercars swept away and mega-地階s 潜水するd. CAROLINE STANBURY tells how all the money in the world could not save the influencer 始める,決める from apocalyptic rain

  • Read what the 前例のない flooding in Dubai was really like for the 豊富な influencer 始める,決める in Rebecca Hardy's 報告(する)/憶測?

Dubai is the glitzy 砂漠 city 明言する/公表する famous for its endless 日光, 同様に as the influencers, footballers and reality TV 星/主役にするs who flock there to lounge in 高級な hotels and upload photographs の上に their social マスコミ accounts.

So few 心配するd the apocalyptic 嵐/襲撃するs last Tuesday when a year's 価値(がある) of rain fell in 12 hours flat.

Caroline Stanbury, 個人として-educated British socialite turned 星/主役にする of the Real Housewives of Dubai reality show, certainly didn't.

'Nobody understood what was about to happen,' she tells me. 'We were oblivious. I had a dinner party planned for 15 people that night and everybody was, like, 'we're still coming', but you couldn't get 負かす/撃墜する the road.

'When you see the water flowing like [water from] taps into all the 高級な shops ? Chanel, Dior all of them are 影響する/感情d ? and the cars, sports cars, floating 負かす/撃墜する the streets, you realise how bad it was.

Luxury vehicles can be seen filled to the brim with water following the rainfall
The driver of this Range Rover posts a picture of his vehicle submerged in water

'Chanel , Dior all of them are 影響する/感情d ? and the cars, sports cars, floating 負かす/撃墜する the streets, you reali se how bad it was' says Dubai Housewife? Caroline Stanbury

This Ferrari faces being written off after being flooded

This Ferrari 直面するs 存在 written off after 存在 flooded?

One of her social media posts captures the ferocity of the storm

One of her social マスコミ 地位,任命するs 逮捕(する)s the ferocity of the 嵐/襲撃する

'I think the point here is it doesn't 事柄 who you are or what you are, you can't 避ける a natural 災害.

'It's not like really rich people here are sitting on a mountain somewhere in their house and are 絶対 罰金. Everybody was 影響する/感情 d by this.'

Her own experience in her recently acquired £3.2 million five-bedroomed 'modern, all-glass, LA style' 高級な home began Tuesday morning, though thankfully she had staff on 手渡す to help.

'When it started about 8am I (機の)カム downstairs and there was water 注ぐing out of my plug sockets which was 肉親,親類d of scary,' she 解任するs.

'I could hear it behind the marble in the kitchen. It sounded like a tap.

'It was very weird. My kitchen was new because I'd just moved in. I took all the 支持を得ようと努めるd stuff underneath off [the plinths] because I was worried about it swelling.'

We're speaking on Zoom, with Caroline in her office which was thankfully 影響を受けない by the floods, with its artworks on the 塀で囲むs and one of those room perfumes with scented sticks on the shelf. The kitchen, it seems, was worst 攻撃する,衝突する. I ask her to 述べる it.

'Bespoke marble fitted kitchen,' she says with a wave of her 手渡す. 'Grey and Miele [器具s]. Beautifully done. I don't know how to 述べる it.

'I don't spend much time in there. We had about a foot of water coming in. My driver was here. My housekeeper helped. We had things to 押し進める the water out of the door.'?

Mops? 'They looked like windscreen wipers,' she says. 'It was all 手渡すs on deck. Everybody was running around with towels.

'We got 天候 警告s all the way through. So we'd have a really big downpour then there was like an hour to three hours to get the towels 支援する into the driers and spin them around.'

'I was 最高の lucky,' she says. 'Some people didn't have electricity. These houses aren't built for a year's rain in a day so nobody had enough towels, but we were spinning ours around in the drier.

'The water was coming through the windows. It was coming through 天井s. It was coming through doors.'

Caroline seems relieved to have secured some supplies from her local Waitrose - which says is struggling to stay well-stocked in the fallout from the storm

Caroline seems relieved to have 安全な・保証するd some 供給(する)s from her 地元の Waitrose - which says is struggling to stay 井戸/弁護士席-在庫/株d in the fallout from the 嵐/襲撃する

Caroline Stanbury and her husband Sergio Carrallo. She moved to Dubai nine years ago.

Caroline Stanbury an d her husband Sergio Carrallo. She moved to Dubai nine years ago.

A sportscar is stranded as the rain pelts down, turning the roads into a river

A sportscar is 立ち往生させるd as the rain pelts 負かす/撃墜する, turning the roads into a river

She 追加するs: 'I don't know how I thought about it, but I noticed my pool was about this high after the first wave [of the 嵐/襲撃する].' She puts her manicured finger and thumb together with an インチ or so gap.

'So I called my gardeners to come before it got really bad and drain it. Once I put it on my Instagram everyone else saw it but it was too late [for them] because no one was 許すd to travel by then, for their own safety, so the 労働者s weren't really 許すd to come in and help you anymore.'

The 嵐/襲撃する continued on and off until 10pm that night.

'The 雷鳴 was incredible too. I don't know if you've heard it on my Instagram, but the noise was insane.'

Ah yes. Social マスコミ. 存在 a very modern personality, Caroline 必然的に charted the experience for her 694,000 Instagram 信奉者s and 321,000 テレビ視聴者s on TikTok, 含むing a tongue-in-cheek film poking fun at what was happening to her, which she 敏速に took 負かす/撃墜する when she realised it was more serious than she'd 最初 thought and 主張するs was just British 'there's a catastr ophe go and have a cup of tea' humour.

While the sun is once again 向こうずねing - Caroline swivels her computer around to show me the 日光 and a (疑いを)晴らす blue sky - she says life is still not normal.

'Everything is at a 行き詰まり now. A 旅行 that should take you ten minutes takes two, three hours,' she explains.

'On 最高の,を越す of everything else, all the kids are 存在 home schooled until Monday while the 当局 work to get everything running 安全に again.

'We're all stuck in our houses really. No one's going anywhere - but I'm sure we will soon.

'We've got one small Waitrose here which is running out 急速な/放蕩な.

'But I feel very blessed that everyone in our の近くに-knit community is pulling together.

'It's 完全に 私的な so you can take a ゴルフ cart up の上に the pavement to get to what you need to.

Shocking videos shared on social media showed how cars were filled with water, forcing hundreds of motorists to abandon their vehicles and swim to safety

Shocking ビデオs 株d on social マスコミ showed how cars were filled with water, 軍隊ing hundreds of 運転者s to abandon their 乗り物s and swim to safety

People wade through submerged streets after abandoning their vehicles

People wade through 潜水するd streets after abandoning their 乗り物s

'We have a dentist, a doctor's, hair, food, so we have everything we need.'

Certainly, she's very appreciative that she is one of the luckier ones.

'(疑いを)晴らすing up the 影響 is going to take time. I look at other houses that had much more 損失 than 地雷 and there's nothing left. I'm... I know, 最高の-lucky.

'I feel 最高の-blessed because there's nothing I can't 修理 with a good 乾燥した,日照りの cleaner and paint.

'One of my girlfriends got really, 不正に 攻撃する,衝突する. Her house was about four feet under water. It was nuts and very scary when you've got young children.

'Other girlfriends lost their offic es. The roofs have fallen 負かす/撃墜する. Their cars are 廃虚d because the water literally (機の)カム up to window level.

'One of my friend's sons had to walk three hours to get home because there were no taxis or cars. Nothing. But considering how much rain fell in such a short time, disruption is not surprising.

A social media post shows rainwater crashing through a shopping mall in Dubai

A social マスコミ 地位,任命する shows rainwater 衝突,墜落ing through a shopping 商店街 in Dubai??

A ceiling collapses under the sheer volume of the rainfall

A 天井 崩壊(する)s under the sheer 容積/容量 of t he 降雨

A luxury apartment complex is partially submerged a day after the storm

A 高級な apartment コンビナート/複合体 is 部分的に/不公平に 潜水するd a day after the 嵐/襲撃する

'We were 最高の lucky. Literally one street over the main road is like a river [flooding] into people's houses [負かす/撃墜する] all the steps. You can't get in. That was the house I was renting before I built this one.

'As you'd 推定する/予想する, anyone with rooms below ground level is really struggling. They build a lot with TV rooms and gyms downstairs which are now three feet under water.'

Caroline, a 47-year-old with three children by her ex-husband who is now married to former Real Madrid footballer Sergio Carrallo, 18-years her junior, moved here nine years ago.

She tells me Dubai has given her 'the most incredible 適切な時期s'. 同様に as her Instagram に引き続いて and Real Housewives of Dubai 星/主役にする turn there have been over seven million downloads of her podcast Uncut and Uncensored.

'I love Dubai,' she says. 'It's a place that 完全に embraced me because I was very different to everybody else. I was English.

'I was on TV [she appeared on American reality TV series Ladies of London which ended in 2017] when they didn't really have any reality TV shows here.

'Now we have Bling and Dubai Housewives [the second 一連の which begins in June] but it's very new for them. They didn't really have people like that [me] living here. It's afforded me a 広大な/多数の/重要な, 広大な/多数の/重要な lifestyle.

Caroline married former Real Madrid footballer Sergio Carrallo, who is 18-years her junior, two years ago

Caroline married former Real Madrid footballer Sergio Carrallo, who is 18-years her junior, two years ago

Caroline says that after all her friends questioned her decision to move to Dubai, they are now moving there too in what she describes as a 'mass exodus'

Caroline says that after all her friends questioned her 決定/判定勝ち(する) to move to Dubai, they are now moving there too in what she 述べるs as a '集まり exodus'

'On 最高の,を越す of that there's the 天候.' She pauses. 'I've been here nine years and never seen anything like this ? ever.'

Caroline is the daughter of 投機・賭ける 資本主義者 Anthony and his wife Elizabeth who was part of the rather posh Vestey family and an old friend of the Duchess of York's father, Major Ron Ferguson.

She was educated at the prestigious Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire and had beaus 含むing Prince Andrew and footballer Ryan Giggs, before marrying 投資 銀行業者 Cem Habib in 2004 with whom she has twin 14-year-old sons Aaron and Zac and a daughter Yasmine, 16. She's been married to Carrallo for two years now.

When she first 投機・賭けるd into reality TV land with Ladies of London in 2014 her parents, she tells me, were horrified.

'I don't think any parent goes, 'yippee this is amazing'. 特に, when they're very old English.

'My mother's first reaction was, 'Don't tell your grandmother it will kill her'. As soon as she said that my reaction was, 'I'm going straight over there to let her know.' I'm a very big sort of bull in a 磁器 shop person. I won't be told what to do by anyone.'

'People will take things as they want to take them. I've got, at this point, a rhino 肌.

'You're not going to please everyone ever. That's just a fact. You can't spend your life in this 商売/仕事 worrying.'

This 商売/仕事? 'It [so cial マスコミ] is a big 商売/仕事. It's not just for fun. I'm not sitting here running around doing stuff for fun. I'm a TV 星/主役にする. It's all an ecosystem of a 大規模な 商売/仕事 behind what we do,' she says.

She explains her 肯定的な experiences in Dubai have 奮起させるd others to join her.

'It's so beautiful here. When I first (機の)カム here all my London friends said, 'Oh, my God, what are you doing?' Now they're moving to Dubai. I can't tell you how many in the last month. It's like a 集まり exodus.

'The 天候 in England is so 暗い/優うつな but here… 承認する we've had a couple of bad days.

'Dubai is the number one tourist 目的地 with 17million 訪問者s last year for a 推論する/理由. Everybody is coming here because of the 天候, the lifestyle, the safety... and that is something a day of 嵐/襲撃するs won't change.'