Segamat Flood Jan 2011

I was beyond ecstatic when my sister told me she bought the ticket back for CNY！She hasn't been back for CNY for...........so long I also can't recall how many years. Too bad my eldest sister couldn't make it else would have been even greater!

It was raining cats & dogs for days leading up to Saturday (29th Jan..seems so long ago now that I think about it) when her flight touched down. It was so cold, only around ~23'C-25'C. I swept & mopped the floor, then tucked myself under the comfy duvet at just 8pm! Brother woke me up around midnight to pick up my sister at the airport, and by then it was only drizzling.

She reached on time. We put all the luggage into the car, and head to what else... but *jeng jeng jeng* ROTI CANAI (called Roti Prata here though). Roti canai on a rainy night, pure bliss, except it's a tad bit too oily.

Weekend spent hanging out, until we received the news back home that it has been raining continuously for a whole week and the river water level started rising.

The 1st major flood was December 19, 2006. I remembered very clearly because Dec 19th was my birthday. I was hospitalized weeks before that for killing headaches and went through head scans but they found nothing (thank god!), then went to Bangkok for a week and on birthday itself, I had dinner at Audees, Burmah Road Penang with my sister & JinGiap. I had everything written down clearly in my Xanga blog but unfortunately I can't unlock it because it's too private but let me show you a few photos from 2006!


#1 The night before the horrible flood. We spent it in the newly opened Manhattan Fish Market Qbay where I scolded the waitress. Lousy service, what a mood spoiler!


#2 Dinner night itself spent with sister in Audees where we fine-dined. What a lousy photo why I look so fat ar?

And this was what I blogged 4 years back:



2006 I was one angry woman. I was pissed at everybody because they made fun of the flood and didn't think of it seriously. BUT 4 years after and I'm a changed person wtf. When people found out about the flood this time, some do still make jokes of it and when I said I'm a bit worried they laughed at it and just never understood the worry we had for our old parents at home. But I just shrugged it off with those people who never had good words. No anger, NOTHING. Well, can't blame them because they'll never understand unless they're in THAT shoe themselves. For people who called me, messaged me, emailed me, commented here in this blog, I remember each and everyone of you. Thanks for being so thoughtful ♥

2011 is not much different. Water level is actually higher this time around. When we called home at 6pm my dad said there's no water IN the house but when I called back around 8pm, they're too busy to even talk to me because water is IN & they are in a rush to move things upstairs.

All roads were flooded so we had to wait an extra day to drive home. And when we reached, thank god the water has receded. Let me show you a few before & after photos.


#3 Our neighborhood. Almost like an island.


#4 Our 20 years piano finally has to be thrown away! *sobs* All the strings inside were filled with mud and it's almost impossible to repair so we threw it away when the trash collector lorry came.


#5 The above photo was taken midnight when it flooded, but that's not when the water level is highest. The bottom photo was when I got home and the water receded. My parents have quickly washed the mud out the house since 4am and this is how the living room looks like at 4PM on the same day. They really worked damn quickly. They said if they didn't washed the mud away it will dry up and harden, by that time it'd take double the effort to clean.


#6 The garden.


#7 This is what my parents ate at night. Luckily there's plenty of food prepared for CNY!


#8 My parents lugged the stove & gas up to the balcony to cook water to drink.


#9 This is how we spent our nights. Electricity & water supply was cut off. So we had to use these rechargeable lights.


#10 And spent the night sitting on the balcony chatting away with practically NOTHING to do. Do what huh? No electricity no water dirty flood water covered house. Pft.

This is the SECOND time my almost 60 year old parents had to move the whole 1st floor up to the 2nd floor. Everytime I see them I felt they aged a whole lot. Because when I tried to carry those things back to the 1st floor AFTER the flood, I also felt like pengsan already. All of us sisters & brother kept taking breaks and napping, but my parents worked NON STOP cleaning this and that and this and that continuously for 2 whole days. SALUTE MAX OKAY. But they say if flood the 3rd time, they really wont have the energy already and if it really DOES flood, I probably have to call the rescue boat to ferry them out rightaway.

This time we had to throw a lot of things away. Most of the furniture that survived the 1st flood couldn't for the 2nd time. The orangy sofa set had to be thrown away because the water has seeped into it, dining chairs, piano, coffee table, shoe racks, cupboards, wooden doors. This is gonna cost a whole lot.

A lot of the Segamatians are pissed though. The government claimed they did a whole lot after the 2006 flood promising it won't happen again, claiming they made bigger drains blah blah blah etc etc and even repaired the train tracks and made it higher so when flood comes, train service wont be affected BUT GUESS WHAT. That's the stupid part because the train track separates 2 major parts of Segamat. And because it's so high up that's why when the flood comes, the water couldn't go to the other side of Segamat coz blocked by the train tracks. In the end, they had to tear it down so the water could flow over if not my house would be worse than just flooding the 1st floor. Dumb much? Turns out the train service is STILL affected and they had to repair and rebuild the tracks.

SIGH

Dont know who's the stupid one now. The other common one is the daylight robbery, where people just tear down the shops' grill doors and steal things. When I tell others that those people have to pay the rescue boat few hundred dollars to be sent out to the evacuation centre, nobody believed me but it's true. Refer to the angry Segamatian flood FB page and you'll know how UGLY things are when the flood comes.

Many of our neighbors did not celebrate CNY. Some of them did not pray on CNY eve but most of us who finished cleaning the house did still pray, but with limited offerings, but I'm sure God would forgive us.

More on CNY next!