Proceedings of the 6 th International Conference on Computing and Informatics, ICOCI 2017 25-27April, 2017 Kuala Lumpur. Universiti Utara Malaysia (http://www.uum.edu.my ) Paper No. 133 628 THE 2014 FLOOD DISASTER IN KEMAMAN, TERENGGANU: LESSONS FROM THE KEMAMAN EXPERIENCE Mohamad Firdaus Mat Saad, Aliza Abdul Latif, and Marini Othman College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia. firdaus.ms@outlook.com, {aliza, marini}@uniten.edu.my ABSTRACT. The worsening flood condition in Malaysia has pressed for researches towards improved handling to the overall aspect of flood man- agement. A special interest was stirred by the success of the Kemaman dis- trict over its success in reducing the impact during the severe flood of De- cember 2014. This paper hope to shed some light on the factors and charac- teristics of the Kemaman practices that has made it successful. A field study had brought the researcher to the site to interview actual personalities in- strumental in the execution of the Kemaman Standard Operating Procedure during the flood incident, which resulted in the identification of several fac- tors, characters, and interesting points: planning and preparation at district area, a flood management system, clear authority & leadership and commu- nity-based flood process. Keywords: Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Fixed Regulation Opera- tion (PTO), flood management, flood management system, community- based, culture, authority, leadership. INTRODUCTION The heavy rainfall brought by the Northeast Monsoon through mid-December 2014 until early January 2015 has recorded a high of 255mm and inundated several states throughout Malaysia: Terengganu, Pahang, Kelantan, Perak, Johor, Selangor, and Perlis (Societies, 2014). Sources indicated this flood as being worse than the notorious floods of 2004 and 1967 and is probably the worst in the history of Kelantan (Richard, 2015). Water levels of Sungai Kelantan at Tambatan DiRaja which assumes danger level at 25 meters reached 34.14 meters in December 2014, compared to 29.70 meters in 2004 and 33.61 meters in 1967(Richard, 2015). The overflows from three main rivers: Lebir, Kelantan and Golok in the state of Kelan- tan had closed 16 roads in six districts. Similarly, in Terengganu 15 major roads in five dis- tricts were closed (Societies, 2014). These closures of land access, compounded by limited number of transports such as boats and helicopters, have hampered rescue activities (Societies, 2014). According to the Center for Public Policy Studies (2015), nearly 250,000 people have been evacuated, close to 20 death reported and property loss of about RM1 bil- lion (AHA, 2015; Richard, 2015). However, in the midst of the tough flood conditions, the district of Kemaman Terengganu, despite sharing the similar disaster, has reported a milder impact. Preparations through im- plementation of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Flood Management was claimed to have alleviated the impact: A well recorded database of flood victims and stakeholders; clear roles and responsibilities shared and assigned to the community leaders; and well-