SMALL business operators are still picking up the pieces nearly three weeks after a violent storm caused havoc in Penang.

The storm, which struck Penang on November 4 and 5, brought the highest ever rainfall of 372mm, causing flash floods on the island and the mainland.

More than 100,000 households were affected by flash floods, landslides, and uprooted trees. Seven people were killed in the disaster.

The weather has now returned to normal with rain on some evenings and nights this week but for the larger part, it has been mostly hot in the day.

For families running a business, it is a big headache having to repair the home and the shop damaged in the disaster.

Hardware shop owner Lee Chai Leong could only begin attending to his badly damaged shop in Taman Sri Rambai five days ago. This was because he had to first repair his home in the same area.

Lee’s single-storey house was flooded in a metre of water. He lost his furniture, mattresses, and electrical appliances. His car needed fixing too.

“My wife and I had to move in with one of our children temporarily. When the floodwaters receded, we had to clean our house and asses the damage,” he told The Malaysian Insight at his shop yesterday.

Taman Sri Rambai was the worst hit in Bukit Mertajam in the flood disaster. 

When the flood struck, many fled to the Jit Sin school that was built on higher ground in the  neighbourhood. But this time the school was also flooded following record heavy rain of 15 hours.

Lee said when he first opened the shutters at his shop, he could not enter as the way was blocked by goods that had fallen off the shelves.

“The water came up one foot, even though the shop is built much above the road. 

“Everything I stored on the floor got wet and damaged. Those are the heavy and most valuable things, like metal tools, locks, electrical tools, and cables,” he said.

Lee said a third of his goods were damaged and he was expecting to throw out quite a few things, give some away and and clean up what he could salvage to sell cheaply.

“I will see what I can still sell and what I can’t but which are still in acceptable condition. I may donate them to the Tzu Chi Merit Society. They could find some use for them,” he said.

Lee’s 18-year-old shop is a mess. It will take Lee and the foreign worker he has employed many more days to clean and disinfect the place.

But he is thankful that he still gets a few customers every day, like the man who needed nails yesterday.

“I should be happy I still have some things to sell. There is an electrician on the row opposite who is planning to close down his business. He finds it hard to recover after the flood,” he said, gesturing at a shuttered shop across the street.

Several family-run sundry shops in the Taman Sri Rambai area were also affected.

A shopkeeper lost bags of rice, dry goods such as beans and corn, and the office computer.

The family matriarch watching the shop, who gave her surname Yeoh, said they could not get to the shop in time to rescue the goods as they did not live in the area.

“It was heart wrenching looking at the damaged bags of rice. The red and green beans were sprouting after soaking in the water.

“So much went to waste. The stench from the muddy flood water and spoiled rice was terrible, too. We closed for a few days to clean and throw things out,” said the woman in her 60s.

Yeoh said the family could not calculate their losses as nobody kept track of what and how much was lost as they were too busy throwing out everything that was damaged.

Yuw, 28, from another sundry shop in the area also said it was hard to estimate how much his family’s business lost.

His shop was flooded in water one and a half feet high, damaging his stock of boxed drinks, washing powder, noodles and other dry goods.

“Whatever we left on the floor were ruined. We could only toss them out. We can’t return them to the supplier.

“Some items are still okay but we can’t sell them anymore. We gave some away to customers.

“There was too much to do and too many things to keep track. I can’t say how much we lost,” he said.

Among the goods damaged were also new stock that just came in before the flood, so Yuw said they would wait a while before they restock.

The only things that sold well after the flood were brooms, mops, brushes, detergents and other items for cleaning, Yuw said, as families in Taman Sri Rambai cleaned their homes.

He also said his shop like many others in the area had no insurance coverage for flood disasters.

“It’s because this area is flood prone. There were floods in the old days but only on the road. 

“But this is the first time water came into the shop. Nobody expected it and now everyone is afraid of another incident like that,” he said.

“Now we are a bit wiser. Everyone’s talking about getting steel shelves.”

The Penang government has yet to reveal the total damages suffered by the state or the bill to clean up after the storm that also brought landslides and fell trees.

The administration has estimated that about 100,000 households were affected by the flood, which was Penang’s worst in 30 years.

To help victims rebuild their lives, the state launched the Penang Bounce Back (Pulau Pinang Bangkit) programme with a RM105 million state allocation to provide victims with relief cash aid, water bill discounts, assessment rate discounts and free replacement of government documents.

Together with donations raised from the public, corporations and other donors, the state is giving victims a one-off RM700 relief aid per household.

The state has so far collected RM16.1 million under the programme. – November 24, 2017.