I wanted to write a about the flood on the Blog so I'd have something written down to remember it and make sure it's in my Blog book which has become my yearly scrapbook.
Around 10am Wednesday I was at Thai class and Orin's teacher called to say they were closing the school because of flooding and I had to pick him and Micaiah up in an hour. I hadn't heard anything else about it so I just thought they meant street flooding or something. In fact, I was relieved because when I answered and it was Orin's teacher I thought either he was hurt or sick or had done something really bad! Wednesday is the day my babysitter stays late so Damien and I can go to lunch. He's in the US so I had plans for lunch with a friend. My neighbor who is a teacher at the school called about 30 seconds later to make sure I'd heard and to say she'd walk the kids home from school for me. I told her to tell the babysitter to let them watch a show...still hoping I could go out! About 30 seconds after that, her husband called, saying he was going to get sand bags and asked if I wanted to know where to get them. This is when I actually realized what was happening. He said the river was going to overflow - we live about 1/4 mile from the river. So I finally realized lunch wasn't happening and the adrenaline started pumping. I decided I should leave Thai then and try to go get sandbags. Then about a minute or so after that, I get a call from a neighbor down the street who is SIL. SIL has an emergency call list and he was calling to make sure I had heard. I mentioned going to buy sandbags and he said there wasn't time and I need to get home to start moving things upstairs. I really got worried at this point. Damien is gone so how am I going to move it alone. We called my babysitter to have her start bringing stuff up. I call a few friends to see if they can come help. It's the only time I got emotional. I'm wasn't getting in touch with people and I was starting to worry about the kids because they weren't home yet and I'm wasn't home and supposedly I didn't even have time to get sandbags. After about 5 seconds of tears while I'm ask my friend to come help, I start driving home. I was SOOOOO thankful I had the motorbike. The traffic was CRAZY. The strange thing was that I was headed home, towards the river...and everyone was going in the same direction. Weren't people supposed to be going away from the river that was already beginning to overflow? Being able to continue driving when all of the cars are stopped is really nice.
When I got home the babysitter had was already making some progress. About 20 minutes late my SIL neighbor came. He was busy trying to get all of his stuff moved but took the time to bring his sons down to move our fridge upstairs. A few minutes later my friend and her husband came to help. I'm happy that we don't have that much stuff! It makes me want to keep it that way. We finished moving everything around 3pm - the river was overflowing by this point, but it was rising VERY slowly. My neighbor went to go get some food at the grocery store by the river and it was already knee high there. I decided go ahead and stay home instead of going to stay with friends. Because we can't really watch the news, it's hard to know what information is coming accurately and what is over exaggerated. Ironically, I ended up getting most of my flood info from people on Facebook...now you know you're desperate if that's where you get your info. The kids and I hung out, played board games and ate dinner and waited. It was a little bit of a crash from the adrenaline rush from earlier in the day and I was feeling a bit lonely. I was about to put the kids to bed but around 7pm, my friend who lives down the street posted that water was rising on her end of the street. I also saw on Facebook that there were "rumors" that one of the Dam reservoirs had been released. Basically, whenever the reservoir reaches 100% they have to release some of the water so it doesn't break - which sends a lot more water down the river. At this point, I decided I didn't want to wake up at 3am with water in the house and be stranded. And I really didn't want to be killing any snakes or rats alone either. Even if we were above the water on the second floor. On the other hand, I was still doubtful that it would actually get to us since it hadn't come by that point. Some of our colleagues and director also were encouraging me to leave since Damien isn't here right now. The associate director lives a few houses down from us and came by to check on me a few times, told me where to put our car if I decided to stay, etc... I figured it was better to leave. I'm so thankful for all of the people who have called and come by and offered (and have) helped. I was never worried and never felt alone. The kids were excited when I told them we were leaving because they love R & M and thought a sleep-over was a great idea! They even set up a tent for the boys - I thought I'd never be able to get them to leave to come home because were so excited.
The next morning I saw from my neighbor that the water indeed had arrived. (I saw on Facebook of course) and around 9am I went to check on the house. Getting there was CRAZY. I took my friends motorbike and was soaking wet by the time I got to the house. I had to turn around a couple of times and go a different way to actually make it there. I ended up parking the bike outside the gate because it was just too deep to go any farther. It was pretty incredible where the water stopped. Basically right at the door. If it had gone up another inch it would have been everywhere. Our kitchen is about 6 inches or so lower than the rest of the house and the water was seeping in the door of the kitchen, but otherwise everything was still dry inside. My laundry room had at least a foot or two. We have three houses on our little compound - inside our gate. One house had a few inches inside, and the other had none at all. It's amazing how every house is built on different levels. I went back and the rest of the morning was spent dealing with crazy children. The boys had gone to bed really late so they were just crazy and fighting more than usual. Sora was having some sort of breakdown every 5 minutes (she doesn't handle change well). My poor friend probably thought we were nuts. Thankfully, everything was much better after lunch and every calmed down and got good rest time. By the evening the water had receded some and I went by the house with the kids to check things out. But more water was being released from the dam and sending more water down the river so I decided to stay at my friends house again.
The water did end up rising, but also receded fast so the next morning I decided to come back home. It was so good for the kids and they spend all morning happily playing. We waded down the street to our little Thai convenience store. It's been amazing to see how everything is open even with the flood. Most people go to the market every day so it's not like they have tons of food stored at home. The stores stay open because they need the business and the people just waded through the water because they need the food. I've never seen so many people just walking around in a flood..and they were all going somewhere.
Saturday our neighbors got a pressure washer and we washed our carport and side walks. My maebaan helped me clean the kitchen and laundry room. There was a horrible layer of mud and "stuff" everywhere that smelled like dog poo. Seriously, it was disgusting and the house smelled like it too. We spent all day cleaning and it's much better. The kids "helped" too which I hope it wasn't a mistake and we all end up sick. A sweet friend invited us over Friday night for movie night since she knew Friday night is our normal movie night. The kids had fun but it was another late night. Sunday we spent the day cleaning some more and moving some stuff down downstairs. Because we are supposed to have some rain this week I was advised to leave the heavy stuff upstairs just in case we're doing all of this again.
It flooding in Thailand since March but this week as been the worst in Northern Thailand. Entire villages have been washed away in mudslides. I know Pakistan and Philippines and other countries have also had problems.
There are plenty of areas that are still flooded. It's like the water kept moving but not back into the river. There are other areas of the city that are flooded today that weren't during the main flooding. Tonight we went to eat and it was neat to watch the city as it cleans up. Many shops were open when they had water in them and they are still open as they clean the mud and gunk out. I have to say, if a city is going to flood often it helps to have all of the buildings and houses made of concrete and floors of concrete or tile. You just sort of hose everything down. It also helps that most shops are basically "outside" anyway. And our house still has water marks from the last flood 7 years ago so dirty walls don't seem to bother people either. I'd bet most places don't even paint after they clean.
I was also amazed at most people attitudes. Although things were sort of crazy as the news was spreading that it would happen, with a feeling of urgency in the air, I didn't see a ton of stressed people. Lots of smiles as usual. Not sure what was going on in their heart, but they certainly didn't seem worried. Part of the culture here is sort of the "what will be will be" attitude. Lots of people having fun for sure. My pastor at church was talking about a family in their neighborhood who was rowing out of their house, pulling a desk behind the boat, but still all smiles. My Thai tutor had about waist high deep water in their church and basically said it was a party as they cleaned up. Not to say there aren't people who lost everything (what little they had) they have no means to get more. And people who didn't have great attitudes. But from what I could tell, it's us, the Westerners, who seemed most worried...maybe we can learn something from the culture of the people we're living with.
I'm thankful God kept us safe and at peace. I was never too worried about our stuff or the house or our safety and always felt that there was someone moments away that was willing to help. The biggest danger was probably me strangling kids who were totally out of their normal routines. :) It's not how I thought we'd spend half of the time Damien was away but it sure made it more interesting.
I put some pictures here of my house and some other ones I got off of the Internet from other people.
This is our playroom upstairs with a bunch of our stuff in it from downstairs.
My laundry room. Glad we put the washing machine up!
The back by the kitchen door where some water got in.
Our little "compound." That's my neighbor who lives in the house on the left that got a few inches. We're the house on the right in the back.
I drove my friend's motorbike but had to leave it on the street because it was too deep in our driveway.
Two days after the flood, the waters had receded a lot and so we walked down to the local little convenience store down our street.
A view down our street on the third day.
Some random pictures from around town. I love this one!
Micaiah helping clean...
I love their smiles.
Well, you gotta eat. It's funny how it just seems like it's any old day...
There are always lots of people fishing in the river in the evening. This guy was probably happy because today the river came to him. :)
This the the Dam. It's high and you can see the water that is coming down out of it.
Gotta save the chicken!
The kids definitely have their priorities straight!
Warrot Market. I get shrimp, fruit, clothes and lots of other stuff from here.
I was amazed at how many people were riding bicycles around. They were everywhere.
Some local government guy handing out supplies.
This is place is sort of like a Home Depot. I saw that they were open today...just a couple days after this picture was taken.
And here is a slideshow of the other pictures I have...
Read more...
