A Flood Destroyed My House and Neighbourhood — The Community Helped Me Rebuild My Life
At dawn, I stood on my roof in Alajo with floodwater at my ankles and the smell of sewage in my throat. Dayo screamed for our neighbour's baby. The rooms below us tore open, plank by plank, as the current dragged our lives into the dark. The power lines sparked once, then died. All at once.
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The rain had stopped, but the flood continued to rise, stubborn as a bad decision. In the half light, our street no longer looked like a street. It looked like a river that had learned our names.
I clutched a plastic bag with my passport, two shirts, and my mother's wedding photo. Dayo held a torch that blinked like it felt pity. Behind us, our front door banged under the pressure, as if the house wanted to spit us out.
A fridge floated past, turning slowly, its magnets still stuck on. A mattress bumped into a broken kiosk and slid away. Somewhere, a goat bleated, high and thin, then went quiet.
From the subsequent compound, Auntie Mansa's voice cracked through the dark. "Kojo, do not jump. The current will take you."
Kojo answered with a sob. "My son is inside."
I saw him at the window, bare chest pressed to the frame, holding a rope that shook in his hands. The water hit the wall like fists. Then the electricity died, and the whole neighbourhood exhaled into blackness.
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That was when I understood. This flood came to rearrange who we were for good.
Before that night, my life in Accra felt simple. I worked at a small provisions shop in Kaneshie. I opened at eight, counted coins and notes all day, and closed when the last trotro horn faded into the evening.
I lived in Alajo, in a modest two-room place inside a compound house. The walls carried old paint. The ceiling leaked in one corner. Still, it was mine. I paid rent on time and managed to fix what I could. I dreamed of peace more than anything fancy.
My younger sister, Dayo, stayed with me while she finished senior high school. Our parents had died years earlier, and the responsibility landed on my shoulders quietly. I cooked, checked her homework, and reminded her that her life could still be bigger than our small rooms.
Every month, I contributed to a small susu with two friends from the shop. I saved for a secondhand fridge, a coat of paint, and a mattress without squeaks. I kept my budget tight because one surprise could shatter it.
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Weekends belonged to family and friends. On Saturdays, we went to Madina market for tomatoes and smoked fish, then visited my aunt in Dansoman for jollof and gossip. On Sundays, we wore our best, sat in church, and ate waakye under the mango tree.
Our neighbourhood lived like an extended family. Auntie Mansa sold kenkey. Mr Tetteh repaired phones. Kojo drove a taxi and teased everyone like a big brother. We shared water when the pipes went dry, and if someone fell sick, we would gather a little money without being asked.
Every year, floods came, gutters spilt over, and the Odaw Channel rose, dragging rubbish as evidence of our neglect. We complained, we swept, we raised our beds on blocks, and we moved on. I kept plastic sandals under my bed and stored crucial papers in a small folder.
I feared floods, but I feared poverty more. I told myself, "This season will pass." I had no idea that one night would tear away my home, my income, and the people I leaned on, all at once, overnight.
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The first sound that woke me was not thunder. It was water rushing under our door with a sharp slap, as if someone were breaking in. I sat up, confused, then my feet met coldness.
"Dayo, wake up," I said.
She touched the floor and screamed. The room smelled of mud and sewage. I grabbed my phone, but the network already stuttered. Outside, people shouted names and directions, yet every voice sounded far away.
We tried to open the door. It would not move. The pressure held it like a giant palm.
"Window," I told Dayo. "We go through the window."
We climbed out into the courtyard. The water rose to my waist and pulled at my legs. I tied a cloth around Dayo's waist and held her close, step by careful step.
Kojo splashed towards us, eyes wild. "Abeni, have you seen Ama and my boy?"
"I just woke up," I said. "I have not seen them."
He turned, desperate, and banged on his mother's door. "Ama, answer me." Only water answered back.
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Auntie Mansa stood on a table, holding her granddaughter above her head. "The baby is choking," she cried.
A man I did not recognise appeared with a wooden door, which he used like a raft. "Put the child here," he said. "We take them to the main road."
We passed the baby to him. Two other men held a rope, and together they moved like a rescue team that had practised in secret. Strangers became family without introductions.
By morning, our compound looked as if it had fought a war. Walls cracked. Kiosks collapsed. People gathered on higher ground near the school, dripping and shaking, counting heads the way you count money after a theft.
That was when we realised who was missing. My uncle Kwaku had visited the night before. Kojo's wife and child had vanished in the chaos. Auntie Esi's husband had gone out to check on relatives and never returned. Names kept piling up.
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Dayo and I found space under a veranda with other families. The food finished quickly. Clean water became a rumour. Babies cried until their voices turned hoarse. The sun came out and dried the mud on our skin, but it did not dry the fear inside us.
Relief arrived slowly and not in the ways we needed. A queue formed, then broke into arguments. People fought over a bag of rice. A woman shouted, "We are hungry, not animals," then began to cry.
I tried to register our names for aid, but the lists changed every hour, and officials shouted over one another. "Come tomorrow," one man told me, waving us away. Tomorrow did not feed Dayo. That afternoon, Auntie Mansa shared kenkey and fish from a cooking pot she guarded like treasure.
So we leaned on each other. Kojo's taxi friends shared information about which roads were open. A fisherman from Chorkor brought a canoe and helped ferry people from stranded compounds.
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Young men from Nima tied ropes across strong currents to help the children and the elderly cross.
For days, searching became our full-time job. We checked the big hospital near Korle Bu. We checked churches in Osu and community centres in Achimota. I wrote names and phone numbers on scraps of paper, my hands shaking, and hoping the next ring would bring good news.
At night, I lay on a classroom floor beside Dayo and listened to people call out missing relatives in their sleep. When light rain fell, everyone flinched. While the floodwater had gone from the street, the chaos remained inside us.
Two weeks after the flood, a rumour ran through the shelter like electricity. "They found people," someone said. "A group stranded near the rail line."
I did not believe it until I saw faces. Volunteers led survivors into the school compound, each one covered in dried mud, eyes sunken, walking as if they had borrowed strength.
Kojo stood up so fast he almost fell. "Ama," he called.
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A woman stepped forward, thin and shaking, and he ran to her. Their son came behind her, limping but alive. The compound erupted. People clapped, cried, and sang through tears. For a moment, joy cut a clean hole through our grief.
I searched for my uncle Kwaku. I searched again, slower, as if speed had been my mistake. I did not see him.
The volunteer shook his head when I asked. "We are still looking, sister. Some people moved with the water. Some separated."
In the evenings, I walked from shelter to shelter with Dayo, scanning faces until my eyes ached. Each time I asked, I felt ashamed and stubborn at once and exhausted. Hope became my daily work too.
That was the twist my heart refused to accept. We found pieces, but not the whole. Survival did not come with a neat ending. It came with missing spaces at every gathering.
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Rebuilding started anyway: not with money, but with hands. Mr Tetteh borrowed tools from a mason. Auntie Mansa gathered women to cook for families, clearing debris. A youth group brought gloves, wheelbarrows, and sachets of water. They did not ask for proof of need. They saw the mud and understood.
One afternoon, I found my mother's wedding photo in a gutter behind our compound. The edges had melted, and my father's face had faded, but my mother's smile still showed. I held it to my chest and cried, not only for the picture, but for the part of me that still believed I could replace everything.
That day, I accepted a hard truth. I could rebuild walls. I could not reconstruct time. My life would have to stretch around absence and still keep going.
Years have passed since that flood, but I still measure seasons by the sound of rain on zinc. I live in the same area, though we raised the floor and repaired the cracks with help from neighbours who refused to let me leave in shame.
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My house works again. The roof holds. The doors lock. The kitchen smells like pepper and onions, and not mud. I returned to the provisions shop, and later I started selling extra items from home, small sachets, bread, and canned drinks, so one setback would not swallow everything.
The scars remain. We never found Uncle Kwaku. We never found Auntie Esi's husband. Kojo's family survived, but his boy still wakes at night when he hears rushing water. Dayo finished school, and she speaks about safety and planning with a seriousness that makes adults listen.
The consequence of that flood became my boundary. I stopped treating preparation like superstition. I keep documents sealed in plastic. I store a small emergency bag by the door. I save a little money on my phone, not for pleasure, but for quick movement when danger comes.
Our neighbours organised too. Mr Tetteh and I formed a small residents' group. We shared numbers, mapped who had elderly relatives, and agreed on meeting points on higher ground.
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Kojo offered his taxi for emergencies when roads allowed. Auntie Mansa kept a list of mothers with babies so we could prioritise them if we needed to move fast.
When a smaller flood came two years later, we moved early, and with quiet resolve. We diverted water with buckets. We sent the children to their relatives before nightfall. We lost some property, but we did not lose people.
Every year on the flood's anniversary, we gather at the school and read out the names of those still missing. We pour water on the ground and hold a moment of silence. It hurts, but it also reminds us to stay ready and to keep looking, even quietly, when rumours return.
Now I volunteer at local shelters during the rainy season, sorting donations and translating directions for tired families. I also join clean-ups before the clouds turn heavy. Every gutter we clear feels like a prayer in action.
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When I stand in my doorway today, I do not only see a repaired house. I see hands that held ropes, shared food, carried babies, and returned to dig mud even when their own losses sat heavy.
I used to believe resilience meant handling problems alone, quietly, so nobody would call you needy. The flood broke that belief the way water broke my door.
In the worst days, official systems moved slowly, but ordinary people moved fast. I saw strangers turn wooden doors into rafts. I saw women split one bag of rice into tiny bowls so children could sleep. I saw men who had lost everything still show up to clear debris for someone else.
Community did not erase grief. It did not return the missing. It did not pay every bill. But it stopped us from collapsing into hopelessness. It reminded me that survival becomes possible when it becomes shared.
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I also learned to accept help without turning it into a debt in my mind. After the flood, our neighbours started a small emergency pot, just five cedis here and there, for transport, medicine, or a night's shelter. Joining it showed me that dignity survives inside dependence, and it survives there with quiet strength.
I still carry survivor's guilt. Some mornings, I wake and remember Kojo's scream, Auntie Mansa's trembling arms, and the silence after the power died. I ask myself why I climbed onto a roof when others vanished. Then I remember that my survival gives me responsibility.
So I show up. I knock on doors when the rain starts. I help mothers pack quickly. I remind people to lift sockets, seal documents, and move valuables early. I share my story in church groups and at the shop counter, not for pity, but for preparedness.
If you lived through a disaster, what would you choose to carry forward, only the pain, or also the habit of protecting your neighbours before the next storm arrives?
This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.
Source: YEN.com.gh
