Away from the floods and Covid-19

 I spent the Christmas yesterday driving to the East Coast...and sleeping due to exhaustion.

Ya, I drove to where I am now as soon as the East Coast highway was opened to traffic.

The place where I was in Klang during the flood was still packed with relatives whose houses were submerged.

They still needed to stay there as the post-flood cleaning process would take quite a while.

I, on the other hand needed a break after sleeping on the sofa for several days in the crowded house.

My whole body was aching due to the discomfort caused by it.

Was a bit worried and did a Covid-19 test before making the trip yesterday and the result was negative. Alhamdulillah.

The trip itself was quite okay.

It was smooth except for a bit of traffic jam along the stretch near Sungai Dua between Bentong and Karak where they closed parts of the lanes due to damage caused by the floods.

I intend to stay here for at least a week.

My boss has yet to call me back to office, so I think it's quite okay to continue working from home or where ever I am now.

Anyway, I'm still scared of Covid-19 and trying my best to lessen the risk of being infected.

I hardly go out of the house these days.

I think Malaysians are of late mostly oblivious that scores of people died of Covid-19 everyday and thousands more were infected.

Maybe they were so used to it.

But really, the number of deaths and damages done by the floods was really not much if compared to that caused  the pandemic.

In fact, I think the floods this year was less severe than the last major one that was in late 2014.

The only difference was that the number of casualties this time was higher because Klang Valley was hit quite hard.

They were simply not prepared for it.

People and authorities in the Klang Valley don't really know what to do when the floods suddenly hit them, causing the extra number of casualties such as what happened in Taman Sri Muda in Shah Alam.

Even the early warning system were mostly focused on the East Coast.

Well, there were lots of complaints now with many blaming the authorities.

I noticed that the complaints this time were more than when the floods hit just the East Coast states or areas in rural Sabah and Sarawak.

Maybe people of Klang Valley know how to complain more, I guess.

Okay, I'm fine with that. It's normal to complain after a disaster.

However, I believe that we ourselves need to reflect on our attitude towards things such as global warming which could be a major contributor towards the disaster.

Our lack of concerns all these while may have caused disasters elsewhere.

I think people living in the more developed parts of the country should be more mindful about what others were going through in the rural areas.

We can never tell when things could turn bad for ourselves too.

It did occurred to me that maybe God is reminding us urban people not to be too dismissive of others due to our sense of entitlement and superiority over others.

That was actually my thought when I first read all those complaints.

Yup, I actually told myself to complain less and instead be more focused on what I could do to improve things.

Anyway, I'm still thankful to all the God's blessings despite the disasters.