Floods: Long drive in the night for civil servant to find PPS for family

KOTA TINGGI: Determined to find a temporary flood evacuation centre (PPS), a woman with her two young children and 82-year-old mother drove into the night to four different PPS here before finding one that could accommodate them.

Norazizah Abdullah, 49, who is a civil servant, shared her first experience having to evacuate her entire family from their home in Taman Kota Jaya, Kota Tinggi due to the floods that hit the district on Sunday (Jan 3).

“It was a scary experience to drive a small car during the late night hours with flood waters rising around, but I was determined to find a place for my children and especially my mother considering her age.

“My husband works in Sarawak so it was up to me to find somewhere safe for my family, we left the house after the river behind my house started to overflow and I knew that my house would get flooded. So that night we made a move to the nearest PPS,” she told Bernama when met at the Kolej Vokasional Kota Tinggi PPS here.

She said when her family arrived the first PPS, it was already full with other victims so she went to another one which was also full.

“It was beginning to get very late, the kids and my mother were tired, cramped up in a small car the whole night. I went to another PPS and it was full too, but the welfare officers after seeing my mother managed to refer us to another PPS,” she said.

Norazizah said her family arrived at the Kolej Vokasional Kota Tinggi PPS at around 3 am (Monday), and she was grateful for the assistance from the welfare officers who also helped her family especially her mother to settle into the hall there.

She said the PPS provides all the essential facilities for many families stuck there, and living there has been comfortable so far for her family, especially for her elderly mother.

“We were given a tent in the hall, enough food and water and the facilities here are very clean. So I am very relieved that my family is being well taken care of here,” she added.

As at noon today (Jan 6), the number of flood evacuees in flood-hit Johor has declined to 3,560 people from 902 families with Kota Tinggi recording the highest number of victims, at 2,126 people.

-- BERNAMA