Cleaning up after a flood can be a time-consuming and exhausting task. Ngô Mỹ Hà Giang, born and raised in Hue, Thua Thien Hue Province, an area prone to severe storms and flooding, shares her helpful tips for cleaning up.

If you don’t clean up after a flood in time, the mud will cake and make it very difficult.

According to Giang, the best way to clean up after a flood is to “clean the mud as the water recedes.” “After the water level drops to ankle height, use brooms or brushes to continuously stir the water to prevent mud from settling, especially in small nooks and crannies.

We stir the water as it recedes. When the water is off the floor, we bail out the water from the yard or pump in clean water to rinse again. The same method can be applied to cleaning the yard and roads,” Giang shares.

Giang adds that after a flood, the weather is usually dry, and there are often power and water shortages, making cleanup challenging. If the mud is allowed to harden in the house, cleaning becomes even more difficult. The best time to clean is when the water is receding.

“In my hometown, during the flood season, people sometimes stay up all night to watch the water recede and deal with the soft mud,” Giang says.

Before moving to Dalat, Giang had lived with floods for 27 years. In the past, when she lacked experience in post-flood cleaning, she made mistakes that made the task more difficult.

“My parents advised me to clean in a certain order: stir the mud as you go and clean each corner thoroughly. But I was lazy and only stirred the water briefly, thinking I would wait for the floodwaters to recede and then clean with fresh water.

However, I never expected that after the flood, there would be power and water shortages, and the mud would harden into thick layers in the house, making it tedious to chisel away the mud and fetch water from the street to clean. It was extremely exhausting,” Giang shares.

After making mistakes, the Hue native learned a valuable lesson in post-flood cleaning.

As the water recedes, I immediately clean the soft mud. I also clean the mud off furniture and walls, and if there is tap water available, I rinse and dry them. If not, I’ll rinse later when water is available,” Giang concludes.

Post-Flood Cleaning Tips for a Less Tiresome Task

At 5 a.m. on September 12, Nhu Thuy (born in 1979, Tuyen Quang city) and her husband woke up early to watch the water recede and start cleaning. Their trick is also to clean as the water level drops.

Thuy and her husband woke up early at 5 a.m. to watch the water recede and start cleaning.

During the recent storm and flood, their house was flooded with water up to 2 meters high. The water rose so quickly that they could only evacuate some belongings to the second and third floors, while heavier items like furniture and appliances were soaked.

On September 12, as the water level started to drop, the couple propped up their furniture and scrubbed the floor. They took advantage of the floodwater to clean the mud off the doors, kitchen cabinets, and stairs and then used brushes to stir and break up the soft mud, which was then carried away by the receding floodwaters.

The first floor sparkled after a short cleaning session

“As the water receded, the mud was pushed out as well. When the water was off the first floor, we rinsed it again, and the floor was spotless. We applied the same method to cleaning the yard and the road.

If we waited until the water completely receded before cleaning, the mud would have hardened into thick layers, making the task much more challenging,” Thuy said.

The previously mud-soaked items were now clean.

After a few hours of cleaning in conjunction with the receding water, the first floor of Thuy’s house sparkled, and their belongings were washed and cleaned. In the afternoon of September 12, the couple continued to watch the water level to clean the rest of their yard and the road.

Thanks to this trick, their post-flood cleanup was much less exhausting.

As clean water was unavailable, Thuy and her husband used floodwater for cleaning.

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