Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Saturday: the flood begins
12 PM
It was raining.
It had been raining the entire night by that time, continuing on to the day. My partner was up early, intending to visit his family nearby. “I’ll leave soon,” he told me.
1 PM
The rain wasn’t letting up.
He peered out the window. “Maybe I’ll leave at 2 PM,” he said with some uncertainty in his voice.
We didn’t have much food, so I was browsing Grab at the time. “Lots of restaurants aren’t delivering to our area right now,” I sighed. “I’ll eat later.”
2 PM
He kissed me goodbye and left.
I looked out the window shortly after – the rain wasn’t very heavy, but it was constant. The construction site opposite us was drowning in the light brown waters.
I wondered where the water was coming from.
3 PM
My partner texted me a few minutes before telling me that there were many road closures due to the floods. He opted to return home. He hadn’t gotten far in the past hour, but he was worried about the floodwaters as the levels kept rising.
I was hoping he’d make it home safe. I’d just heard about the accident that happened the night before, a tragedy in which a man lost his entire family.
News about the floods everywhere in Klang and Shah Alam started pouring in.
I watched the floods opposite our building move forward from the construction site it claimed, creeping over the roads.
4 PM
My partner finally arrived home. Neither of us had eaten yet, our supplies were low, and obviously Grab was not delivering to our location.
“We can’t leave our immediate area,” he told me. “We have to find food around this area only.”
We went nearby, to a little section of our industrial area that had a few small restaurants and a couple of kedai runcit. We managed to have a meal finally, but it took us a while, as the restaurant was clearly overwhelmed with an unexpected number of customers from our tiny area.
Source: Daniel Chan
5 PM
We browsed the kedai runcit next door to the restaurant. Three loaves of bread were left – two of them expiring the day after, and the other expiring the day after that. I took the latter.
We bought the loaf of bread, some onions, garlic, lime, and eggs. It would be enough for about 3 or 4 meals.
We had to hope that the flood would cease before then, because there was no way out from our area. We were surrounded by floods, but we were the lucky ones – we merely could not leave; our barang wasn’t destroyed and my partner still had his car.
6 PM
We got home and I immediately started browsing Twitter for news. People were on the roofs, entire houses swept away by the water.
I heard that this was due to a tropical depression – the Philippines was being hit by Typhoon Rai and Malaysia was suffering along as a side-effect.
I have family in the Philippines. I looked at the storms and the winds they were experiencing. I didn’t have the energy to deal with the worry I felt growing for my Filipino relatives – I was feeling full with the anxiety I already had for those in Malaysia.
I looked out the window: cars were lined up by the curb and even on the curb, hoping to escape the rising water.
Night
I was doing what I could. I donated small amounts that I could spare to every legitimate donation thread I saw and signal boosted fundraisers. I retweeted news. It never felt enough.
The floodwaters had successfully claimed an entire section of the roads now. Cars were abandoned by their owners to the water. I looked at them and wondered what the cost would be to their owners.
Social media was full of pictures and videos of the flood. I heard about the best and the worst of other Malaysians. Ordinary citizens were mobilising effectively and efficiently to rescue victims, offering aid in every way possible. The #kitajagakita movement was going strong – I heard stories of men in lorries hitting up floodstruck areas to rescue victims, people with boats travelling distances just to help out, people coordinating to find translators so they could help refugees and immigrants…
I also heard about the fireworks, the convention at MITEC.
Source: @ByFaizati (Twitter)
Sunday: the aftermath (but only for the fortunate)
The rain lightened to a drizzle and eventually ceased in the afternoon. Spurts of rain came and went, but the floodwaters opposite us started receding. We were still stuck though, at least till the evening. I made a list of supplies to get just in case this was to happen again, and I refilled the water containers we bought to handle the water shortage a while back and charged my powerbanks.
The news of the discovery of a corpse near where we were living soon got to us. So much senseless loss. I heard of pets drowning, people who were stuck on their roof for 48 hours, people who were electrocuted because of live wires in the floodwaters.
Source: @mikeyipdotcom (Twitter)
There were stories pouring in of remarkable bravery from ordinary people: a Burmese gentleman rescued someone’s father on a makeshift raft made of styrofoam, a gurdwara started cooking meals for victims and they were joined by Malaysians of every race and religion in the haste to help (and they still need volunteers and donations!), the list goes on. When push came to shove, the ordinary Malaysian proved to be a complete superhero – but a lot of this was because of the lack of response from those higher up.
Source: @sadhosays (Twitter)
When the floods finally receded enough to reveal the roads underneath, my partner and I went on a supply run for food and first aid materials. Even though our area was in the post-flood portion of the event, we still weren’t safe. Subang was just 10 minutes away but the ride there was vividly dystopian. This is what we saw:
- A van was abandoned in the middle of the road,
- The quality of roads had decreased sharply – there was sediment all over the streets and holes littered the roads where they used to be flat and paved,
- Fallen trees, weakened by the floods and lying across parts of the roads,
- Traffic lights and streetlamps had ceased functioning over the course of the flood – certain junctions had become lawless, and parts of the roads were dark,
- But yet, when we reached Subang, about 7 minutes into the drive, everything just… looked normal.
And although it was over for us, the flood remained dangerous elsewhere, most especially in Taman Sri Muda and its surrounding areas.
Source: @ayeitsdharsh (Twitter)
Someone posted a video taken by drone of the view of Shah Alam submerged by the flood. It was horrifying. I also saw the photos of the disaster that is happening in other states, like Pahang. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept when I understood how much this cost people – not the ones on top, but those of us who are your average citizen.
The worst thing that happened though, by far, would be how ineffectively our authorities responded to the national crisis. In my opinion, it looked like they didn’t care about what happened to us. The people didn’t need ceremonies or arguments about whether a convention was constitutional, we needed action. The lack of care put into their responses stemmed from their lack of compassion and responsibility for their constituents. There were a few who did what they could, but the vast majority of them were a disappointment.
Please, I urge all who have the capacity to, please help the victims in their hour of need. Whatever you can do, please do it. We cannot rely on the authorities to help us, so we must help each other. And despite what others say about religion or anything, please listen to the science behind this occurrence: we can expect worse to happen if we’re not prepared to handle the climate crisis.
The pitter patter of rain will never be unaccompanied by anxiety for me now.
How you can help:
A compilation of fundraisers seeking financial aid
Post flood precautions:
General
For more stories like this, read: Malaysian Income Inequality Is Getting Worse – What You Need To Know and Here’s What It’s Really Like Volunteering at a Malaysian PPV Center.
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