Many residents yet to return home

There are several families in the city who still haven’t been able to return to their homes after the floods. Water entered many houses and ground floor apartments. Most people were forced to stay elsewhere – communal shelters, friends’ homes -- and when they came back they realised that the damage was more than they had expected. People living in residential areas like T. Nagar and Saidapet were the worst affected.

V.S. Jayaraman of Motilal Street in T. Nagar, says, “I left my house on December 1 and I still have not been able to return. We left when water entered the house. There are five apartments in our residential complex and all the houses on the ground floor are ruined.” His furniture and electronic appliances suffered, but what’s worse is the stink. 

“There is fungus growth on the walls and sofas. We have hired some local professionals to clean the premises, but they say it will take some more time,” he says. Srinagar Colony resident GV Ekambaram too has incurred heavy losses as almost everything in his house is completely damaged -- electronic items, including the TV and fridge, are damaged. 

Kitchen items, like the stove and utensils, are unusable too. “We haven’t returned to the house since December 1. We’ll have to start from scratch, right from buying the household essentials, furniture and electronic appliances. Also, our car was completely submerged,” he says. 

Residents have found that the disinfecting and cleaning of the house is a long and expensive process. S. Ramesh, a resident of T. Nagar, who will move to his residence in a couple of days, says, “Most of our furniture was damaged. We had to discard everything as we were told that it could not be restored.

The walls were wet and we could feel the current when we tried to use the switch board. We had to get that fixed first by the electrician. Even the water lines were damaged.

The next process was to get the house whitewashed to get rid of the damp smell. We then disinfected whatever we could. The entire process was expensive and time consuming.”