My ordeal during the Michuang Cyclonic Storm

I am a 51-year-old woman with a post-polio locomotor disability and have been a wheelchair user for the past six years. I am also a pediatrician and  run a shelter for homeless women with disabilities in Chennai under the aegis of the Greater Chennai Corporation. I am a resident of Anna Nagar, a neighbourhood in north western Chennai since 1979.

During the first week of December when the severe cyclonic storm Michaung was looming along Chennai’s coast, moving slowly, relentlessly flooding us with extreme volumes of rainfall, I was not prepared for the ordeal that was waiting for me. The rain that started on the evening of December 3, did not cease until midnight of the next day - pouring for almost 31 hours non-stop, and giving us a historic 53 cms of rain over the period - a historic high in over 47 years.

I had a bad feeling about this since the rains began, and that’s unusual for me, as I love the rains! But this one was different. I went to bed only in the early morning of Monday around 5am and woke up at about 9am to find that water had entered my house to a level of nearly twoinches. Around 11am, the water started rising and that’s when my brother Albert, who lives upstairs, made me come up.

Due to a hip subluxation I developed a few years ago, I’ve been unable to go up the stairs. Albert hauled me up five steps with much difficulty, and then the both of us gave up. I sat on the steps and tried to reach out to the helpline numbers that were flashed on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), but there was no response. I sat there for nearly six hours with a book (which I did not read), watching the water

levels rise, while my phone battery drained from the social I was using to look for updates. The power supply to the entire area was shut early in the day as a precautionary measure to prevent accidents,  including electrocution.

Around 5.30pm, my neighbour, Theo, called out for me and asked me if I was okay. Apparently, my brother had spoken to a friend, Greeshma, who got in touch with Theo, asking him to help. It was nearly dark, and Theo and Albert then carried me up the stairs – no small task – and finally deposited me on my brother’s warm and comfy bed. Theo’s partner Hannah sent me a hot flask of coffee and a pot of steamy sambar rice – the best I have ever tasted in my life.

I am utterly grateful to Theo, Hannah, Greeshma for looking out for me, and my brother Albert for being so patient and kind. The water rose to nearly 14 inches at one end of my house and 11 inches on the other. The water drained away only on the morning of December 6, leaving slush in all the rooms. In all our panic, we hadn’t cleared the things on the lower shelves of our cabinets and cupboards. A whole lot of files and books, including my nephew’s study material for his civil services exams were destroyed. 

My art and hobby (quilting) supplies sourced

from around the world are unusable – and I have thrown them away. Negatives of photos which I had collected over 30 years, were submerged. I don’t know if they are usable again. Memories have been lost, but I’m glad to be alive.

It took us two days to clean out the entire floor and throw away all the things that had been damaged. My office team members - several of them who had flooding in their own homes in North Madras - came to help us out in the following days with the cleaning. All of us were in a daze, not so much over the loss of

fondly procured personal items and property, but for the feeling of fear and helplessness that this experience put us through.

We have lived in our house since 1979 and never before have we been flooded like this; we had 1.5 inches of water during the December 2015 floods, but it was nothing like this. I know that many people in Chennai have had it far worse than us.

People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters as they are the last to receive any help. My heart goes out to those of them who are still struggling to get back to normalcy.

While this was a disaster in every way, it is also a wakeup call to the city administrators. Our built infrastructure – including homes, workspaces, public spaces - are hostile for people with disabilities.

My own home that was built decades ago has not kept up with my changing needs. My immediate plan is to install a lift in the coming months, as I feel that floods are going to be a recurring feature in Chennai. Personally, I am beginning to appreciate the need to declutter and live minimally. I need to resume my swimming lessons once again and focus on fitness.

On its part, the city has a lot of reckoning to do. The design apartheid has to be addressed. A plan for disaster preparedness - particularly involving vulnerable populations including the elderly, chronically ill, persons with disability, and pregnant women - among others, has to be in place, clearly communicated

and implemented. One would have thought that post the tsunami and the 2015 floods, we would have learnt our lessons. 

But during this recent disaster, we saw too many PR exercises and very little information that was actually helpful. Helplines were down and that is unforgivable. There is no glory in cleaning up after a disaster, when we cannot be prepared for it. The primary reason my neighbourhood in Anna Nagar was flooded, were the numerous encroachments on the Otteri sewage and the fact that it has not been desilted in several years. 

The story is the same in other parts of the city, where water bodies have been encroached upon and abused. Building structures without planning and steady increase in the rise of sea temperatures due to climate change, have made experts preempt flooding and natural disasters in the city getting worse in the coming years. Despite the government’s claims about storm water drains being built in the city after the 2015 floods, the ground situation after every disaster remains the same. 

Where does the buck stop?

(Aiswarya Rao is a disability rights advocate, founder of Better Home Shelter, and a medical doctor from Chennai.)