September 14, 2005
indoor flood
There has been some serious water shortage problem in Kluang. We have been enduring this problem for over 5 months now. The water level at the water catchment is way below critical level resulting in irregular water supply. As I understand now, (supposedly,) there will only be water supply on alternate days, and the day starts from noon. So every household would need to be familiar with the rotation and store up water in preparation for the day without water supply. You can just imagine how inconvenient and how annoying that could be.
Since I have been back at home, there were times when our water storage tank ran out of water. This is really turning our lives up side down. In times like this, you perpetually live in anxiety and fear that you will run out of water. It is pretty tiring trying to keep track on when there will be water supply and when not. You need to adjust your washing routine, cooking routine, showering routine and on desperate times, your bowel movement routine. No joke!! I am very cautious with my water usage on ‘no water’ day for the fear of emptying the tank and look forward to the ‘got water’ day, when everything returns to normal, plus all the washing, water storing etc. Actually it is NOT normal at all!! They mess us up big time.
Yesterday noon was the start of the day where it is supposed to be a ‘got water’ day, but they stuffed it up again. There was no water supply even until this afternoon. Naturally, I would hope for the water supply to resume as soon as possible so I would not have to fear that the water tank will run out of water. Finally at about 2.30pm when I was about to get out of my room for some coffee, I heard the noise of water flowing. “Great!” I thought to myself. “Finally the water is here.” But hang on… something is not right. Why is there water leaking from the ceiling and why is the floor flooded with water??
OH NOOO!!!! The water tank is overflowing… and it has drenched the ceiling below it and water is leaking into the house. Great! In order to stop the water from overflowing, I hobbled to both bathrooms upstairs and turned all the taps on. Finally, the dripping came under control but it felt wrong to leave all the taps running especially when there is major water shortage in town!! I knew the right thing to do was to turn the main tap off, but being immobiled by my recent surgery; I can’t possible get downstairs, go outside to the courtyard, and out of the gate to turn the main tap off. I rang mum who were out in the country for business and told her what happened. She tried to get a plumber but the plumber is out of town as well. So she rang my cousin and asked her to drop by to turn off the tap.
It hurts and makes me feel terrible to see the tap running like that. So to make myself feel better, I jumped in for another shower. I shampooed my hair again and had a good shower while waiting for my cousin to arrive. I think this shower probably made up for all the water I tried to conserve for the past 2 months. Finally after about 40 minutes, my cousin arrived in front of my house. She turned off the tap and that was it. I could finally ease my mind, turn off the other running taps and try to dry the floor. Yes, all this on my crutches. =)
Do you feel my agony? Not having water is a problem; having water is also a problem.
Posted by melanie at September 14, 2005 3:28 PM