Wednesday, November 03, 2010

When The Clouds Burst



It has been raining intermittently from Friday night until Sunday and turned heavy that night. It didn't stop until the wee hours of Tuesday. The result? Flood! This week's flood was the worst in Kedah since the 2005 disaster. Personally this is the second time I was directly affected - in 2005 I was trapped at a resort in Kuala Nerang and this year the waters nearly flooded my home.


The rivers started to burst their banks on Monday morning and by afternoon all routes out of UUM were severed with the sole exception of the Bukit Tangga (northwest of UUM) exit. I was in UUM as the convocation ceremony was going on and my wife kept me updated with the situation at home. I decided to make it for home as soon as the working hours end as the situaiton is getting worse. I also decided to buy some dry provisions, just in case. Using the Bukit Tangga (a FELDA plantation) route means a rather long way to get to Changlun but the traffic was light on the highway until about 2 kilometers from the town centre where traffic slowed to a crawl. By this time the the highway in front of the Changlun police station was inundated by water and was only accesible to heavy vehicles and 4WDs. The rest of the traffic were diverted to Kodiang road before they can re-enter the highway. I grumbled to myself as the traffic jam would mean loss of time and hence the possibility of me being prevented from reaching home by rising waters. Anyway, I made to the local departmental store, buy the necessary foodstuff and went on another circuitous route to get home as the direct route was completely blocked. Arriving home I found that the road outside my house was already under 5 inches of water, more or less. Assessing the situation, I parked my car on the higher section of the neighbourhood whilst my neighbours on either side of my house had already fled to their kampungs.


The rain continued throughout the night and I basically did not sleep and kept an hourly checking on the flood waters outside. By 11pm the water has reached the gates and by 2am it has reached my porch. I asked my wife whether we should bug out (to a friend's house nearby, situated on a higher ground) but she said to ride it out, at least until the water reached the front door (which means the water on the flooded road would be roughly thigh-high). But then around 2.30, the rain suddenly stopped and continued to be so until around 3.30am when it drizzled intermittently back. However that break was enough to allow the water to recede even though it rained quite heavily from 4am to 6am.


With the coming of daylight and receding waters, I decided to take a look around the housing estate and the surrounding neighbourhood. The main road was under 2 1/2 feet of water and the adjacent houses are flooded to knee-high. I guess pictures convey a better description of the situation yesterday....anyway the flood waters receded completely by this morning and everything went back to normal...for me. My sympathies to the neighbours who had suffered flood damage to their homes.....





Mind that the water is receding when the photos were taken! (except for the first two)

5 comments:

mumuchi said...

Kena buat kenduri kesyukuran ni!





Kat KL !

Alpha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alpha said...

In a way, yes...wife aku sedekah karipap...nak jual, kedai tutup...daripada buang, baik sedekah!

Tang kena buat kat KL tu...ha ha ha....

Hairil Rizal said...

Along, thanks for the update. The pictures tell a lot of the situation there.

Anyway, I'm a seconder of Mumuchi's proposal. Hahahaha!

yazid said...

tu kat depan rumah ko ke alpha? wah pesta air sekali sekala pun seronok jugak.