Dear Readers,
Yes that's our house with the car in the driveway and blue floating garbage bin.
I was pondering how to start this blog. Words could not come easily due to the devastation of the flood and its impact on countless of lives.
My son came to the rescue and said "It was a normal day. That is the only thing I can think of and said I don't know, papa can continue from there". At first I thought what rubbish, you can do better. Then I pondered and it dawned on me, its perfect. What he said is true. The day started off normally. Just like any other day. It started off perfectly.
So here's what we went through on that faithful day.
Saturday, 18 December 2021, the day started off bright and sunny. Were were quite relaxed and looking forward towards tomorrow, as we were supposed to be having holiday in Raub, Pahang, Farrah Soraya Tanah Aina Resorts.
The same time last year we were at The Datai, Langkawi. December was always a time we looked forward to. Boy! How wrong I was this year.
The day continued sunny but towards afternoon it started raining and it became heavier. The rain was on and off. My son's Yamaha drum class was cancelled by his teacher because he said there was heavy rain in his area and that he was afraid to travel if flood occurs on the road.
In the evening we texted with our Sunway Club swimming teacher to find out if swimming classes will be held? To which we received the reply that some areas to where her students are staying had begin flooding so classes are cancelled.
The rain pretty much remained the same. It rained continuously non stop and sometime in the evening, I had a discussion with my wife to alert the resort that we may cancel due to the bad weather. I was concerned that if we traveled there, we will not be able to enjoy the jungle activities surrounding the resort, due to the heavy downpour. December is famous for rain especially in the East Coast.
My wife proceeded to cancel the stay but I did reassure the family that if tomorrow it is sunny, we will go.
Slowly but surely the water level began to rise. First the road drainage in front of my house reached the top and within a few hours it reached the back of my car tyres. With my wife's assistance, we moved the flower pots to the sides to clear the driveway to park the car higher.
We continued normally watching tv and relaxing in the living room. Awaiting for night fall to go to bed.
First water begin to enter the downstairs bathroom from the drainage pipe and adjacent study room rug begin to float. I called my wife and kids to see as I was so amused of the floating rug. Such incident had never happened before.
Then off we went back to the tv. We were watching a Beyblade cartoon on Netflix. On and off we would check the news for flooding issues in the area but there was none. We checked the WhatsApp groups but there were no serious alerts.
Then, the water level crept up unforgivingly into the living room and slowly reaching our toes. It was then that we realised that this is highly abnormal and we scrambled to check the news. Again there was no reports on flood in Taman Sri Muda area. It was then the lights went out and our Taman did not have power supply.
We were cut off from the world. All on our own without our handphones fully charged.
I told the family to get upstairs on higher ground where it is safer. Nothing could be done at this hour of the night.
My wife wanted to save some electrical items but I told her not to. I said lets just get rest. Our lives are more important. Those are just things. All replaceable.
Deep down, I did not think the water would rise so high so fact. I thought the most it would rise would be slightly higher that the ankle.
Flooding has never occurred at our Taman. Even in Taman Sri Muda where flood use to happen, the last was back in 1995 and it was not this serious.
My son wanted me to save his Iron Man Avengers Mark VII Hot Toys as it was his first Hot Toys and was displayed at the bottom of the Ikea Detolf shelf in the living room. My wife asked me to grab her Staub La Cocotte enamel dutch oven cookware in the kitchen. Only those 2 things we grabbed and went to bed early on the second floor as there was not much else to do.
We chat the night away. Without electricity we conserved usage of our mobile phones. The windows were left an inch open to let fresh cool air in the rooms and ward off rain and mosquitoes from entering.
We slept on and off due to mental awareness of our surrounding situation. We all slept together in the master bedroom due to the hazardous conditions.
Sometime in the middle of the night my wife woke me up to inform that the water level had rose to level 6 of the stairs and the colour was so merky and there was a horrible stench. She hesitantly asked me to save the Unifi router and modem. I did that that and also saved my antique bakelite rotary dial tone telephone that was connected.
My kids were awake by then and we kept sharing stories to keep their mind off hunger as they did not eat dinner.
I realised that we did not have any junk food to munch on the next day and no water to drink. I went downstairs in the murky water, headed to the kitchen and was greeted by my floating 2 door Samsung fridge swung wide open. That's one heavy ass fridge being manhandled by the flood like a poodle, in amazement, more than shock. Floating in front of me was a zip log bag containing 4 Maggie packet. I grab that and headed to my kids room upstairs to shower and rinse of the zip log bag.
I could not get any filtered water as the flood level had risen above the kitchen sink.
So that was what my kids ate the next day. 2 packets of dry Maggi to sustain them selves.
Sunday, 19 December 2021. The kids awoke up rejuvenated. They had a goodnights sleep. They were amazed it was cold without fans and aircond. Usually they will sleep daily with the fan and aircond on, due to the heat. But last night was different. The weather was cool and with the window a peek open. It allowed precious cool fresh air in.
At night the water had risen to its peak, to my neck and on uneven surfaces to my nose. Come morning, although there was rain, the level had stabled and slowly being subsiding.
Morning I braised the flood water downstairs and went to grab our room keys to open the grills should rescue come. Bloody cold was the water.
In the darkness. To my rescue was a brass Olight guiding me. Without electricity and thick heavy curtains blocking light. It was pitch black. As the light could not penetrate the murky water, I was afraid of snakes or any other amphibians that had entered the house from the drainage holes in the bathroom.
I did not mention that there were probably knifes lying somewhere on the bottom. I knew this because the Zwilling Henckels knife block was floating as well. I just had them hand sharpened by a pro a week back and they were razor sharp. At that point in time somehow this skipped my mind. It was probably good as I may not be so brave otherwise.
Morning we saw a fire-fighting & SAR helicopter making circles after circles doing nothing. Probably, giving reports and feedback to the authorities.
My son kept waving his pyjamas outside the window to grab attention. So did a few neighbours. But nothing materialise. There was no such rescue.
About 10.30am a rescue boat, Im not sure if it was mended by the army. But it came. They only rescued 3 houses and told me they will be back. They never came back. That was the only trip they made.
Later in the day, I think it was bomba. I'm unsure. But the same thing happened they rescued 2 house and told me they will come back. But never did.
My daughter's mobile phone was the first to die. Mine was next. Then my son's. Only my wife's phone sustained as she had her powerbank. We communicated with neighbours by shouting from our windows.
The uncooked Maggi my kids devoured quickly as it was the only thing we had.
Thought the day only kindhearted and brave residents and volunteers were helping and evacuating one another out. Some used their own fishing canoe, some had boats and some even used empty fibre water tanks for the evacuation.
That's where the term "Rakyat tolong Rakyat" was penned. "Citizens help Citizens". No where were any government rescue effort seen throughout my Taman by me except for the 1 time army and bomba effort.
Around noon some volunteers brought food and mineral water to our top floor master bedroom. They braced the roof and brought food to us. That is the type of brave Malaysian's we have. It was a Chinese guy. He only brought 3 packets of rice with curry and some chicken. He was apologetic when he realise there was 4 of us. I told him that is enough and that we can share. No need to risk your life and climb the roof again just to bring another packet of food.
Throughout the day we saw Rakyat rescuing Rakyat. They were tired. Shorthanded and lacking proper tools to assist but it never stopped them. They returned back. Time and time again evacuating people.
Sometime in the evening the water had rescind to my chest level and I told my family we need to evacuate ourselves. My neighbour had an inflatable pool and I told my wife we could use it. We cannot wait for others to rescue us due to their short handedness. Better we go now when the water level is slightly below my chest and whilst, we still have sunlight. If it gets dark and it begins to rain then we will be in more trouble. As long as we get out we can get to the relief centres and eventually get to my mother's house. My wife agreed and off I went. Just armed with the brass olight and my pocket knife (in case there is something foraging in the murky waters).
Our clothes were all packed into my camping backpack.
I first climbed out the bedroom window and down the roof with the heavy backpack and reached the main wall of my porch but decided to turn back as I knew my kids would not make such feats.
Next attempt through the front door. It looked a long time to open the main door as it was glued shut to the doorframe. I struggled and even use my legs on the wall as leverage to finally pry open the door. I dashed out and headed towards my automatic gate. It could not be opened and I had to force it open. I saw my neighbours sitting on the fence eating the food that volunteers brought whilst waiting for someone to evacuate them. I told them my plan of self-evacuation and they wanted to follow us. I reached my neighbours porch and lifted the inflatable pool above his rather high gate. It was not difficult as the water level was at my shoulder level.
Once I got the pool I sprung into action. My wife got out first. Followed by my kids piggybacked 2 trips. It was difficult manoeuvring between pots and things you cannot see underneath you. Needless to say I got a few bruises with my attempts.
Once my kids were out, I headed to close the front door but could not do so as its alignment had ran. The wooded door has absorbed water and had expended and was a little misaligned. I closed the door as best as I could and held it in place with sticks to the door grill.
The main automatic gate I just secured shut with bendable wires.
My Chinese neighbours joined us in our evacuation. Walking just a few meters an Indian family with his elderly dad wanted to follow us.
Along the way we passed some neighbours and offered to come back to evacuate them. They declined the offer for reasons best known to them. Those who agreed we assisted.
When we reached the LASKA highway, we were aided by strangers. They were helping everyone. A kind Malay chap, En. Syaiful, brought us to the relief centre, Dewan Bunga Bakarwali, in Alam Impian. Mended and fully managed by Malays. The relief centre had everything for everyone.
20 December 2021, Monday. It was my son's birthday.
The water had subsided tremendously and we were picked up from the relief centre by my wife's buddy, Ms. Sally to celebrate my son's birthday.
All in all. Damages we sustained were only financial. Sound system gone, autographed rare books gone, rare antiques damages beyond salvation and etc.
What we gained are tremendous. Experience, the proof that Malaysians come first. All race help when it counts and a feeling of gratefulness to Allah or any god that you pray to, that life is precious and valuable. Now that is priceless.
I guess thinking back one sign something was wrong or amiss was on the 18 December 2021 when there was unusually large amount of roaches escaping the drainage through the ground floor bathroom. My son was proud to announce that he had killed more than 20 of them in total. We had never seen such amount of roaches in the house. Once in a while, we would see a roach or two. Never this many.
The damages sustained throughout Taman Sri Muda was devastating. Lives were lost. Properties were damaged. It saddens everyone when they see or hear what happened here.
But we had a united Malaysia. One for all and all for one. Rakyat tolong Rakyat.
Thank you for taking the time to read. God bless.
Friends of my wife who brought volunteers from BN to assist cleaning houses in our Taman.
