Jeddah cries and bleeds. Questions look for answers. Eyes search while others cry. The smell of death rises from everywhere. One rarely sees women and children. Men try to summon their strength and determination. Everyone prays to Almighty Allah that they will find their loved ones. They search under heaps of mud and rock. There is deep agony. It is not known whether the flood waters have swept them away or whether they will ever return. These are the scenes and feelings through the Quwaizah District. Abdullah Al-Muttairi says he saw families struggling against death in the middle of the flood waves. Al-Muttairi escaped unhurt with his son, by clinging to trees neighboring his relative's house. “The flood was powerful and flowing fast. Water tanker trucks were swept away by the flood waters as if they were no heavier than feathers. Cars, with families inside screaming for help, were floating fast down with the flood, but nobody could rescue them, or even think about it. Al-Muttairi runs to a wide and deep pit carved by the floodwater. He says he is sure it is full of bodies, “A Ford, a Toyota and a Toyota Camry – three cars were carrying families. I'm sure they were carrying families. As for the other cars, I didn't see who was inside them.” Looking at the surface of a lake made the floods, one cannot tell whether there are cars or human beings deep in the water. Its bottom is pitch-black and its edges are greenish. Not far away from the lake, Talal Al-Subhi stands beside his car and inspects it. He finds it precariously inclined towards a valley and it only needs a slight nudge to fall. “We never expected our picnic would turn into a nightmare. We had to escape to the roof of our house. I gathered my family and we remained on the roof watching the swelling flood below. It swept away cars and houses. We heard people shouting for help from different places and we prayed for Allah's mercy. When a Civil Defense helicopter flew over us, I waved frantically but they didn't see us,” says Al-Subhi. Whoever passes the edge of “Jack” Street in Quwaizah District can see a modern building. The flood has taken its toll on the structure. The rains and floods have eroded the cement plaster and concrete foundation. The contents of the building can be seen from the outside. At the bottom of the building there are the remnants of furniture and furnishings. The owner of the furniture, Khaled Al-Dhahiri, inspects what is left over. “We went through horrific moments, but Allah was merciful to us. However, we are still in deep agony because of the loss of my wife's sister and her husband. Their car was swept away by the floods.” Al-Dhahiri's neighbors describe him as “crazy” after he smashed his neighbor's window to evacuate the children and women to a school next to their building. “When the flood eroded the building's foundation, I feared for the families. I thought of shifting to the neighboring school. Immediately I suggested that we smash the windows overlooking the school, from my neighbor's apartment. At the beginning my neighbors were reluctant and they refused, but when they heard the roar of the water, they agreed. We shifted 17 families fast from the building.” Al-Dhahiri inspects what is left of his children's room, and the living room where he used to receive his relatives and friends. He only has memories left of better days. Abdullah Namankani is in Virginia in the eastern side of the United States of America and Muhammad Al-Amri is in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The former is studying engineering and the latter information technology. They do not know each other but what brought them together is the search for pictures and video-clips on the Jeddah disaster. Jeddah residents have shared horrific video clips of the disaster through the video sharing website, YouTube, but “Jack” Street stole the show with the most powerful images. Abdullah and Muhammad, who both have relatives in Jeddah, open the website daily in their search for the latest developments and for anything that will allay their fears and concern about the calamity that devastated everything east of the highway in Jeddah. “Jack” Street, the throbbing artery of Quwaizah District, has become famous overnight in different parts of the world because of the mobile phones of the youth. The district's residents say the street's name was derived from Jack Company that specialized in quarrying for rock that was used to make concrete. After the urban expansion, the street became the heart of the area linking the new and old districts. Jack Street starts from the area adjacent to Al-Haramain Road and bisects the heart of Quwaizah district. The first sign of the street is dolphins made of nickel, shining in the light of the day. The dolphins rotate around an axis, in a beautiful scene. They can be seen by a motorist on his way to King Abdul Aziz University on the other side. Jack Street links Al-Musa'ed, Al-Sawa'ed and Al-Obeid districts with Gowz Valley (Wadi Quwz), which flows to the heart of the area. Over the past ten years, the pavements of Jack Street became famous for the sale of all types of commodities. It became a magnet for residents who could buy anything from bread to textiles to thobes from vendors on the pavements. The crowding on the pavements of Jack Street was its distinguishing characteristic and the crowds of shoppers increased multifold during the holy month of Ramadan. Now everything is different. There are heaps of mud and the blood of the injured and dead. During the past few days, several bodies that were swept by the floods several kilometers away, were recovered here. Now soldiers and military police frisk those leaving the area to make sure that residents' homes and businesses are not being looted.
