What Happened to the Middle Class in Bangkok's Floods?

When Bangkok's floods hit, the news media, foreign and domestic, spent time profiling the poor living in flooded homes, or forced to flee flood water and move to government shelters. Bangkok however has a large middle-class, and tens of thousands of these people were badly affected too.

I live in an apartment building in the north, in an area that didn't initially flood when water first hit the city. So, as floods began to inundate areas further north, people evacuated their homes and moved south to take short-term leases on temporary apartments.

Within days, my apartment building was full, after having had only 60 percent occupancy for the last three years. When I rode down in the elevator, I'd meet people I'd never seen before and the lobby was a riot of worried flood victims and little kids running wild. These were some of the middle class, also devastated by Bangkok's floods.

Another 10 days and my neighborhood flooded too. Unless they had no choice but to go to work, most people remained in the building, rather than wading down our street now two feet under water. But being trapped in your apartment becomes boring fast, and soon the lobby was the meeting place for everyone. Every time I went to buy water from the building shop, I'd meet another new flood victim and get their story.

Khun Dek and his wife lived in Bang Bua Tong and their house had ended up under five feet of water a month before. They'd moved everything up to the second floor that they could move, packed what would fit in the car, and high-tailed it out of there.

With Bang Bua Tong one of the first areas to flood, it will likely be the last to drain. Khun Dek and his wife have now been in my building for eight weeks, paying a mortgage on a home still under water and apartment rent here.

One family arrived at my building at 2am, desperate for a room. The night watchman woke the assistant manager, and she found a small apartment for them. Mom, dad, a teenager, and grandma and grandad, who were in their 80s.

The assistant manager told me the day after, when they arrived every member of the family was soaking wet, as they'd had to wade through flood water in the dark to get out of their area. They hadn't known it would flood so high and got scared when they realized they might get trapped. As the water kept rising, a midnight escape was the only option.

I took one confused old man up in the elevator with me. He normally lives in a one-story house in Chang Wattana, so he wasn't used to elevators. He was scared, with the two feet of flood water outside our front door, the electricity might cut out, the elevator stop, and he'd get stuck. Alone.

The manager in my building, who lives off property, was lucky as her area of Bangkok didn't flood. But, every morning without fail, she left her house at 6am and took a bus and two army trucks through three feet of water so she could get to work. It took her two hours. At night, she took a boat down to the end of the street, and then did the whole trip back home again.

Many of the middle class in Bangkok have been just as distressed by the floods as the poor. Of course, most have far more money than working class Bangkokians, so repairing their homes and replacing belongings is easier. But, leaving their houses, sometimes in the middle of the night, to escape flood waters, and losing treasured family mementoes. Yes, that was traumatizing too.

Let's face it. You don't have to have no money to feel pain.