KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — With the worst floods in decades starting to recede, the story of how aid workers and volunteers managed to deliver timely aid to trapped flood victims remains untold.

How did they do it? How did they get through the high flood waters when roads were virtually invisible or washed away?

Michael Yip, the co-ordinator of the #RAOKFloodRelief effort using 4x4 trucks, says they relied on a “can do” attitude and constant feedback from the locals.

The experienced drivers of the 4x4 trucks opted to use the smaller roads located on higher ground and circumvent the swamped highways, Yip said, citing the use of the Lanchang route to reach Temerloh in Pahang as an example.

“What we try to do, we try to make detours into the location rather than driving straight into the water,” Yip told Malay Mail Online when contacted earlier this week.

Community leaders and local residents in the flooded areas also informed the group of areas or roads where floodwaters had receded and where food and other supplies are needed, Yip said.

Yip said that like many other groups providing aid, his team used all methods possible to hand the aid to those in need, including getting into a boat when a 4x4 can’t make it.

“Since we started until now, our guys have been going in and out on a daily basis… there doesn’t seem to be a problem.”

He said when there is a need to get to people, they will find a way to do it.

Drop off and return

Efny Johan from Putrajaya’s youth volunteer movement 1Malaysia For Youth (im4u) said that entering Temerloh was too dangerous at one point, and the volunteers dropped off the supplies at the local hospital instead.

“It was too dangerous even to enter by boat,” he said, pointing out that the group did not “want to endanger our volunteers”.

Instead of leaving the trucks idle, im4u volunteers would make additional trips with more supplies and return to distribute the items to flood victims.

“If we can’t access the villages, we will go to the relief centre and drop off and come back,” the director of im4u’s brand management told Malay Mail Online when contacted on Thursday.

Partnering and backing up

Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS)’s Rozalla Iskandar Mohamad Rosni said that the group faced the same difficulties in reaching the flood victims in the initial stage in the past two weeks — including “submerged routes and strong currents”.

But as a group supporting the main government agencies such as the Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia (Bomba), the Social Welfare Department and the police, Rozalla said the MRCS managed to work out the best strategy and logistics to deliver aid.

“Due to these co-ordination and inter-agency relations, most of the relief distribution trips are well-prepared except for sudden changes due to changing weather and water levels,” the MRCS Contingency Plan and Disaster Preparedness officer told Malay Mail Online yesterday.

The MRCS, which currently has a network of trained local volunteers helping out in affected states Pahang (180) and Kelantan (200), has been deploying its rescue boat team in Kelantan.

But Rozalla said the relief operations have become smoother in Kelantan due to the receding flood levels, with the two rescue boat teams deployed to Pahang instead where conditions are more severe. Only a few rural areas and some villages in Kelantan remain inaccessible by road and can only be reached by air, he said.

Flood victims in the act

Although there have been accounts of desperate looting in media reports, Yip paints a different picture of flood victims that his group encountered, saying that they do not selfishly hoard supplies, but often helpfully point to other needy communities nearby.

“All these people, when they are in crisis, they are very nice. They’ll say we already have enough, just go to another group. They also know that other groups like them just need help,” Yip said, referring to flood victims turning down offered supplies when met.

The civil service has also been tirelessly working to rescue and aid flood victims, with photographs posted on the official Facebook accounts of government departments and agencies — including military personnel carrying the elderly and tending to the wounds of a diabetic patient, in one case.

In these desperate times, the deeds of these Malaysian heroes — young and old, known and unrecognised, government agencies and civil society — shine through.

As the number of flood evacuees continue to go down, none of these groups will stop providing aid and relief, with plans in the works to help the victims pick up their lives and clean up their houses.