After the flood alert siren sounded in Taman Sri Muda at 6pm on Tuesday (Nov 8) evening, Thilagawathy Maniam, 45, was ready to leave home with her emergency evacuation kit, husband and three children.

The bag containing important certificates, documents, money, change of clothes and essentials has been packed since March this year, and this time she wasn’t going to guesstimate the seriousness of the situation as she did almost a year ago.

“We lost two cars because we were...