Four days after flash floods wreaked havoc in many of Makkah’s neighborhoods, local residents are trying to pick up where they had left off.

Local residents narrated in detail to media the damage caused by the floods that killed one person and trapped 24 inside their homes for hours.

One person who was not home at that time said he wasn’t able to enter the neighborhood and had to sleep at a nearby hotel with his family.

“When we finally managed to enter our house, we found the furniture inundated in water,” said Omar Waddah. “Most of it had to be thrown out.”

Amer Al-Sufiani, another citizen living in the neighborhood, said that this is not the first time this neighborhood is hit by floods.

Residents had previously filed a complaint to authorities to install water drainage systems in the area to no avail, he said.

The neighborhood that was worse hit was Al-Buhayrat.

“Our neighborhood was the most affected by the floods,” said Abdullah Al-Sulami, a local resident. “The problem was made worse after the water had dried up, since rocks and debris were left behind on the street. My car was completely covered in water.”

“We were forced to stay inside the house ten hours, completely engulfed by water and with no electricity for many hours”, said Fares Al-Zahrani, a resident of the same neighborhood.

“We reported our situation to the Civil Defense, the local municipality and the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), but they all responded late,” he said.

Another nearby neighborhood also had no electricity for hours, forcing residents to seek refuge at hotels and furnished apartments.

“We applied for compensation to the committee,” said Saleh Al-Hashimi, a resident.

Abdul Muin Al-Sheik, SEC spokesman, said his company had coordinated with the municipality to address the problem of floodwater to curb future power cuts resulting from floods.

“The company held a meeting with the municipality to come up with urgent solutions for such problems to prevent water accumulating in the area,” he told a local newspaper.

“Every power station has a back-up supply to operate in case of malfunction,” he said. Maj. Saleh Al-Olayyani, Makkah Civil Defense spokesman, said civil defense teams tried to determine the extent of damages on Sunday.