In late December 1980, my husband, daughter and I were living in Shell rented quarters at Teo’ Garden at Tanjong Lobang. There had been incessant rain, strong wind from the Northwest and very heavy seas. During this time the road to Brunei had been washed out in several places, so people were unable to go to Brunei by road for a while.
As the heavy rain and strong wind continued the dual carriage way Miri - Bintulu road collapsed A friend, Jack Gorman was driving with another person either to or from work at Bristow Helicopters near the Miri airport where he was a maintenance engineer. He and his friend drove into a ravine of raging water that had caused the road to collapse. They were both rescued, but unfortunately Jack lost one eye in this incident.
When the Miri-Bintulu road collapsed it broke the main water pipe from the Miri water works into town. This meant there was no piped water into my house and my neighbor’s houses.
At that time my daughter, Suzanne was a toddler so I needed to wash. I asked my husband, Jimmy to cut the drain pipe from the roof gutter, so I could collect rain water in a bucket to fill my top loading washing machine. Thank God for a top loading machine for it can be filled by bucket. At that time it was raining very heavily so there was plenty of water for washing, bathing and cooking, but you only had to collect it.
During this time I heard of an ex-pat lady living at Luak Bay next to Alice Yong’ house who took her shower between two sheets hung on her clothesline at the back of her house which faced the sea.
At this time we had a Ford Pinto station wagon that we shipped back to Sarawak from the states. Jimmy had driven the Pinto to work at Shell in Lutong one morning in early January 1981. Later he called and said it was flooding in Lutong, so he decided to leave the car under a colleague’s house near the Anglican church and get a ride home. He came home and the next day flew to Kota Kinabalu on business.
That evening Jimmy’s colleague called me to say the water was rising under his house and he was worried about my car. I called Jimmy’ s cousin, Edwin, who was also living at Teo’s Garden and he said he was going the next day to Lutong and that I could come with him.
The next day we drove to the ferry that went across the Miri river to the Miri General Hospital. It had stopped operating because it was unsafe to use. We then drove on through town and Krokop until we reached the Piasau bridge.
The Piasau bridge was also closed because it was unsafe to use. The river there was high and very swift. We took a speedboat from the Piasau bridge to Lutong. The river had over flowed its banks and as we passed the Lutong airport you could just see a sheet of water over the airfield. We took the boat to where my car was parked.
I got out of the boat into the water about two feet deep and saw that the water was about three quarters if the way up the tires on my car. I opened the door and got in and luckily I was able to get the car started. I drove it to the only high ground, the approach to the Lutong bridge and parked it at the side of the road out of the water.
I then went with Edwin in the boat to his office on the main road to Shell. His office was in a raised wooden building. We took everything off the floor and put things on the desks and tables, for there was to be a king tide that evening and the flood water might rise higher in the evening.
After this we could really see the effects of the flooding. It had rained so heavily up river that the water flowing under the Lutong bridge just flowed straight towards the main Shell office building and fanned out into Lutong bazaar. The Shell emergency committee organized the sand bagging to the Shell refinery, so they would not have to close it down. There were many people buzzing around in motorboats and sampans. The flood water was really dirty since it had cleaned out all the chicken coops, river toilets and all sort of junk. Also in the river were snakes and other wildlife in the flood water. My friend, Roselind who lived in the Shell camp in the first raised house to the right as you cross Piasau bridge said she had about one foot of water under the house.
I could see that the children and men were enjoying playing on the porches and riding in boats. The women were having a headache trying to get fresh water for drinking, cooking and washing. Also being cooped up in their homes and not being able to buy food was a problem. Edwin and I went back to the Piasau bridge by boat, it had stopped raining by then and the river did not rise anymore that night.
The next day my husband returned from Sabah and since he could not get to work we drove as close to Lutong on Pujut road as we were able. We drove down Pujut road to where Joe and May Brodie lived (near the Tadika Sri Indah). The rest of the road to Lutong was flooded and impassible at that time. The stories we heard were that the river rose ten to twelve feet at Pujut corner and at Kampong Pengkalan rose six feet in some of the houses along the river. Jimmy’ friend Lim Ban Joo said the water was one foot deep throughout his company house in Lutong. They had to take their dog in a boat to dry land so he could go to the toilet. My friends Jane and Choke were living in Krokop at the time and the west wall of their living room became saturated with water because the wind kept blowing the rain on it so they had water running down the inside of the wall on to the floor. To stop this, they hung plastic sheets from the upstairs windows to keep the rain off the outside wall.
A few days later the flood subsided and Jimmy went to get our car from Lutong. He was unable to get the car started so he had it towed to the workshop where it was repaired. We had to get the carpet taken out and dried and put back. It never was quite the same again. We were lucky that the car engine was not damaged as there were so may other people’s that were damaged cars in Lutong. After this, when it rains very heavily for a long time I get worried that it will flood again.
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