The morning after.......

Saturday, 6th Nov 2010, we came back......again......to see the condition of our house, they said that the water was released last night and it did because from what we saw on the road, on the way back from PMC we drove through Jalan Teluk Wanjah was filled with more water especially the roundabout area. Even , a much higher four wheel drive infront of us contemplated whether he wanted to go thru or to turn back but we had no choice, we had to drive thru because it was the only way to our house, the other route, Lebuhraya Darulaman was much worse.

This was what we saw. Thank Allah for the good weather that day. Sunshine but you'll never know for they said there might be a second wave coming.

whenever a car drove by in front of our house, it would push in the water into our front door

I hope the washing machine and dryer were okay,

before......

after...... we came back in the morning and by the evening, the flood water had receded, but left lot to be done

my dry kitchen was filled with water. While mopping the floor, I saw my butter and cream cheese in the fridge, if I didn't transfer them out fast, they would be spoilt and I thought of my friends who were not affected by the flood and so I called her and thankfully she had a fridge big enough to squeeze my butter and cream cheese into. Thank you Na for allowing them to 'tumpang' your fridge for a while.Taman Nuri, Jalan Dato' Kumbar was spared.

three boxes of mineral water on standby. the clean water was only fully restored on Tuesday. the power supply was turned back on that Saturday evening, but my friend whose power supply which was cut off much earlier still didn't get it back until much later We were lucky that ours was cut off for a short while only, but not the clean water supply

it seems that it just came , decided to drop by when we were out , left its mark and left, very quick, unlike some areas. We were grateful for that.

an indicator of how high the flood water was ( mark on the mineral water box)

We are still trying to adjust our lives back to normal after the ordeal, which was nothing if compared to those staying in Jitra, Sg Baru, and a few other flood affected areas. It may be nothing or considered minimal sufferings but it was quite overwhelming to us, our first experience and hopefully it would be the last ( hopefuly it will not turn into an annual thing).The physical and mental stress that we had to endure,

Our thanx ( heaps and heaps of them ) to all our friends and relatives for their well wishes and doas, by phone, sms, FB, shoutbox, personal visit, helping out with the furnitures, storing my butter and cream cheese, etc, etc, appreciate the support so much.Your thoughtfulness and kind words mean so much . thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Sediakan payung sebelum hujan...Nov 5th 2010, friday.

, the old saying, be prepared with your umbrella / get your brolly ready before it pours/rains but in this case,




sediakan lilin sebelum blackout

get your suply of 100 plus

cartons of bottled mineral water before the flood

the early morning before the water even reached our ankles, hubby was contemplating whether we should drive the car to higher place or not but where to? We might need the car to bring our things out should we decide to stay elsewhere if we were to be deprived of all the basic amenities

our neighbours' houses in Taman Stadium ( arnd 9 am )

we took a quick tour around the taman to see how everyone else fare in this unpleasant flood situation, we were in the same boat, so to speak.
,

the small road leading out to Jalan Stadium ( IPK, opposite the road )

The road towards the airport, Pumpong, Anak bukit, Pantai johor was closed

returning home, we discovered that the water level had definitely risen and very fast too!

notice the big vase in thispicture and the one at the bottom.....

having fun, are we?their first encounter with flood, Batrisyia nowhere to be seen, scared of the water, is she?

jauh termenung......what was she thinking? worrying about what's gonna happen to her oven, her chiller, her cooker, her fridge, all those things were in the kitchen, wet and dry and we decided not to lift anything there for those items were very...very heavy and we decided to let them be and we 'tawakkal', hope and pray. this was the first time ever we had to lift the furnitures up ( in the living room ), we heard that this year's flood was going to be bad, very bad........
Taman Uda, Jalan Sultanah, Lorong Fajar, Taman Rakyat, all affected much earlier than us and soon we knew that our fate would be like theirs........

the big vase was almost gone....., we decided to pack our things and to leave around two pm but after having received a phone call that my MIL was seriously ill back at the kampong, we left earlier.

Batisya, go and get your clothes, we might be away for a few days

Where are we going?

Away, away from our home, because of the flood, we have no supply of clean water and pretty soon, they will cut off the power supply too( as if she would understand what they were.....)

But, I am going to miss my home.....her exact words. She's going to miss her home. We sure will Batrisyia..
hopefully all these will be over before we know it.

Before we left, the water was barely two inches away from our front door, but with heavy hearts, we left our home sweet home because there was not much we could do, not without clean water and soon to be cut, the electricity supply.

later that night, we came back to check on our house. my wet kitchen area, is filled with dirty flood water and so hubby decided to lift the cooker on to the wooden chest. Less than ten minutes later, at about 8.10 pm on Friday, 5th November, we were officially cut off from the power supply. The long awaited cut and finally it came , at least, I had finished all my orders. This was when the candles came in handy but we didn't wait long.

I longed for a hot bath or shower after a long , tiring , hectic day, and since there's no supply of clean water, no electricity, we decided to search for a nearby hotel and the funny thing was, when we asked one hotel after another( most were fully booked ) if there's any room available, one of the hotels informed us that they also did not have clean water!who would want to stay there!
We checked in at a hotel close to the hospital which my MIL was admitted.

It was late but I badly needed the shower. Had one, felt good...sooo good, however, the hot shower, , the sight and smell of the clean sheet and well kept bed and room just couldn't wipe off the worry on our faces. Rumour has it that the authority in Haadyai might open up their dam and release their water at 12 midnite. It would definitely make matters worse..........

in the mean time I tried to get some rest, for tomorrow would be a long day...................

to be continued.......... the aftermath....the cleaning up.....

while we were sleeping....

Nov 5th 2010, Friday morning,
while we were sleeping, uninvited guest came knocking, subtly, quietly, it slipped from underneath the front gate, slowly coming in into the porch area

Nov 4th 2010, Thursday morning.
the day before,

Nov 5th, around noon

Nov 4th 2010, evening

7 am, Friday, 5th Nov 2010

5.30 am: 5th Nov 2010, Friday, Taman Stadium,

"Ma, air dah naik"

looked out from his balcony, I saw the flood water just ouside our gate, the road was already filled with water.

Should we move our car to higher ground? As suggested by our next door neighbour to my son.

6 am: another neighbour called, to remind us about our car too. Since I was already up, I continued decorating my half finsihed cupcakes., only needed to put the single white blossom on each cupcake.

7 am: almost reached the front door.

from the balcony, there's flood water on the road, just outside our gate.

oh.oh ... this doesn't look too good
By now, everybody was up and we decided to lift the furnitures ( with help from hubby's friend who came over lending the extra hands that were much needed in this situation . thank you Mr M ) up either on chairs or on tables. We braced ourselves for the worst.

The least we could do, we didn't know how high the water level was going to be because we had never experienced flood before, We have stayed in this house, in this neighbourhood for 16 years and alhamdulillah so far, our house and this taman had never been affected by flood before but this time, by the look at the water level, which kept on rising, I think the record wouold be broken and it would be making a new history.

to be continued.........................

Thursday, Nov 4th 2010, Jalan tun Razak

these photos were taken by my hubby and kids on Thursday, evening. I couldn't join them because i had cupcakes to deco ( people were busy with evacuation and you were busy decorating cupcakes? Promises are meant to be kept, not broken unless you are in a state of emergency, no water, no electircity) On this day, our house had already been deprived of the clean water supply but still enjoy the luxury of electricity which, were going to be cut off any minute now )The more reason I need to complete my cupcakes ASAP.

the flood water from the north, from Haadyai, from the dam, from all over, came slowly but surely.... to Alor Star

Cars parked alongside Jalan Tun Razak belonged to the residents whose houses had been innundated with flood water

The pain of seeing these is not the same as the ones actually experiencing it( and as fate has it, we ourselves would soon experience it too)

Batrisyia's school's playground

they might be people who were affected by the flood, or maybe those who just wanted to see what the flood was like ( just like us at that time)

We were told that the flood water might soon be coming our way, Jalan Stadium, sooner or later, it would come knocking at our doors. We just hoped and prayed, it would just come knocking, say hai and bye bye. Joke aside, this is a really serious matter, but what else can we do, we would take the necessary precautionary measures but the rest we leave it to fate. InsyaAllah, we will be protected.

more stories on the flood in my next entry, this time it is the people at Jalan Stadium's turn to share the grief and burden of being the flood's victims , to experience it firsthand..

banjir oh banjir

two 'kura kura' in my 'porch', the cream one is ours, 'JK'@ jiwa kacau and the white one belongs to hubby's friend, which later came to our rescue later today

, it's dry land here, the road infront of our house, who would have thought that there are thousands of people have been evacuated out there, some from Bukit Pinang, Kubang Pasu and even Kota Star, my area, and so I thought I'd bring my Volks out to see for myself ( didn't know what I was getting myself into!)

My first stop was the bank at Jalan Teluk Wanjah, ok, no sign of flood water there, made our second stop at Rainbow for a few things which my daughter needed to do some craftswork with her youngers sister, then I thought , why not, we were already out here, let

us drive along lebuhraya darulaman cos there's where you can see and experience the flood.the first sign of the flood was at the traffic light into the road.oo.oo.... I smell trouble....

so far, so good, only one side of the road is filled with water, mind you I was driving an old Beetle. this is LEbuhraya Darulman, and so I drove my Beetle slowly and carefully ( and silently praying that it will not break down in the middle of the road )

as seen from inside my Beetle

the front view and things didn't look too good, water on my side of the road...hang in there JK, you can do it..... heading towards another traffic light

just look at that water, my heart started pounding heavily....dum...dummm......and suddenly,, came another sound......poooonnnn..pooonnnn..... the horn! the water must have short circuited the wires!

panic stricken, I kept on driving with the horn blaring and I keep on praying that ,please please just let us through

drove towards another traffic light which would lead us back to Jalan Stadium . muzium Negeri on our left ( there's a river behind the museum)

before the traffic light

the sign board showing that the old hospital is ahead of us, which was not where we wanted to go. All I wanted to do now was to go home, .........................

made a U turn at the traffic light instead of taking right towards Jalan Stadium because the road was dry on this side but not there....as could be seen in this picture. Where my Volks was parked, there was no water but look at the houses the flood water I think more than one metre high!

benches in the stadium area

Whatcha doin' girl?Batrisyia refused to pose in front of the camera for fear that she might fall intothe water!

Should I stay or should I go? Should we walk home?and leave my Bettle by the road side? There's water ahead of me and there's also water behind me. I wouldn't dare to drive through the same road which we came just now, for fear that Volks engine might not be able to stand it the second time round, It's quite a long walk home and we would have to wade through the flood water..........

After a few calls , one of hubby's friend who has this four wheel drive, you know, the really big monstrous one came and drove us back home whilst hubby with his White Beetle friend came to drive our cream Beetle back home.

took a short cut through jalan pekan Koboi, this time this picture was taken from inside the 'giant' four wheel drive, I forgot what the model was. We, Batrisyia and I arrived home safely.Thank you Ijan so much for the lift.
A few minutes later "JK" was back with hubby and my other daughter, Tsara', followed by another Volks who gave hubby a lift. thank you Budin.

Quite an experience!This might be a bit funny and scary experience for us but for those who were badly affected by the flood, who had to b evacuated, all forty thousand more of them from Kedah, Perlis and Kelantan, it was a different kind of experience for them. a nightmare I would think, cars, furnitures must have been destroyed in the flood water. I hope and pray that things will get better soon but by the look at the weather outside, it is still gloomy and perhaps more rain to come. we are preparing ourselves too, just in case.. No supply of clean water since yesterday and probably no supply of electircity soon and I am trying to finish off my cupcakes order for tomorrow. there's a reason for everything and we must accept everything as it is with patience a lot of faith