When floods hit 72-year-old Yupin Otaka's community in Ubon Ratchathani last week, it was every man and woman for themselves in the scramble to get out.
The elderly woman said no evacuation plan was in place, and she had never taken part in any emergency drills in Warin Chamrap municipality. Nor had her neighbours, she said.
"I didn't know there was a drill for that kind of thing," Ms Yupin said, adding that if any such drills exist, she wants to take part.
"It would be helpful to be properly prepared [for any more floods]," she said.
When floods hit, the residents just grabbed whatever they could and ran, said Ms Yupin, who sells ya nang juice, a condiment for many northeastern dishes.
She and her neighbours have camped out on the side of a road since the water inundated their homes several days ago.
Khamlai Suebsuan, 68, a resident of Phu Dua village, also in Ubon Ratchathani, said her community was heavily flooded in 2002 and 2011 when the Moon River overflowed.
Residents were forced to move their belongings to higher ground on the other side of the river.
She said communities should periodically stage flood response drills.
It was not enough for officials to survey flood damage and hand out survival bags to residents, Ms Khamlai said.
In one of the worst-hit areas of Chachoengsao province, the floodwater depth has exceeded 1m in tambon Laem Pradu of Ban Pho district.
Surapong Sriprapan, 63, said he has chosen to stay in his flooded home in the tambon, but no state help has arrived for days. Food and necessities promised by the authorities had not turned up.
Older residents waded through the water and waited in vain to receive the supplies, he said.
A source familiar with disaster mitigation said the 2011 flood crisis prompted state agencies to draw up plans and allocate budgets to fight floods.
"But in their hour of need, many affected residents have been left on their own in despair," the source said.
The source explained how the national emergency and disaster plan to alleviate the effects of flooding breaks the responses down from national to tambon levels.
Under the plan, drawn up and implemented by the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department, flood responses are designed according to the intensity of each crisis.
The responses involve setting up flood surveillance and warning systems, preparing and carrying out evacuations, finding emergency shelters and finally returning flood victims to their homes once the disaster is over.
Pornpitak Panlar, chief of the Disease Control Department's emergency response team, said during the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, many people in Phuket panicked and ran in all directions to get to higher ground.
They did not know which agencies would be able to help them, or how.
Local government units should direct emergency responses in their areas because they best know the terrain and people, he said.
Nantasak Thamanavat, of the Supreme Patriarch Centre on Ageing, said rescuers should work with public health volunteers in rescuing elderly or frail people during times of crisis.