Mud Pai
Just past dawn on Saturday, August 13th, Suzan Crane was awakened to find her stilted wood bungalow swimming in the river and a house floating downstream. Over the following few days, she pitched in with the relief effort and spoke with other survivors and volunteers about the worst floods to drown Pai in 40 years. (Originally published in Untamed Travel)
JOHN KELLY, English expat resident of Pai, whose house was destroyed:
“I woke up at around 7am with my roommate Dan knocking on my door. When I put my foot out of bed it was met with about one inch of water. I then opened my bedroom door and within a second I was nearly chest high in water and mountain debris, tree branches, etc. There were seven people in the house, including a one-and-a-half-year-old baby. In the background you could hear people screaming outside. When I opened the door the first thing I saw was Aor holding her baby, chest high in water, crying, and in shock. I took the baby from her and battled my way through the water to the other side of the room, forced a window open, because by this time water was coming in through the window, then sat on the window ledge and put the baby over my head to safety on the rooftop. That’s when I became aware of all the stuff happening throughout the village because of the view from the roof. I was joined by Dan on the roof only to witness a complete huge wooden house drift past where our back garden used to be.
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