HULU LANGAT: Two elderly siblings related their experience of going up on a roof to seek shelter from the recent floods together with their four pet cats – only to find a python already up there.

       Asiah Osman, 63, said she and her 62-year-old sister were on the roof together with this odd menagerie for ten hours.

       She said the water level began to rise at Kampung Sungai Lui here at about 7pm on Dec 18.

       “My foster son managed to move a car and motorcycle to higher ground, but when he attempted to return to the house, the water began to rise rapidly and the currents was very strong,” she said when met during the General Operations Force’s post-flood operation on Wednesday (Dec 29).

       She said he managed to grab on to a tree and climbed to safety.

       Asiah said when they made it up, they saw the python already seeking shelter there.

       “I ‘told’ the python to stay on the other end of the roof,” she said.

       She said the snake did not harm them or their cats and slithered away once the water receded at about 5am.

       “We had to do everything to survive as other villagers could not reach us,” said the retired bank worker, adding that she had been living in the house for 40 years.

       “It was the first time a flood of such magnitude occurred in the village," she said.

       Asiah also said the floods had affected her deeply and that she would leave the village if it rains heavily for more than two hours.