Urban areas are places where people gather, live, and survive. The flood events in urban areas often changes a hazard into a disaster. There are numerous locations in Indonesia that flood-prone urban area. Even though the area periodically floods for decades, the community finds it challenging to leave their house and move to another area. The objectives of this paper are to elaborate more about how social experience (through “gotong royong”) live and develop during the flood disaster in urban area. Data collection was conducted through literature search and interview. To underpin the findings, a structured and semi-structured interview was carried out with community member representative in the research area. The qualitative data were analyses using content analysis. This paper attends North Jakarta as flat coastal area. Therefore, tides have a greater potential of affecting flood in North Jakarta. In the meantime, Bandung is one of Indonesia's basin area in the center of Java Island. In consequence, river-flood is more affecting in this area, especially in Andir. Disparities caused by two different community criteria in Marunda and Andir, in term of their social experience in the face of catastrophe. Non-permanent residents typically live in Marunda North Jakarta. On the other hand, Andir communities in Bandung are dominated by permanent residents. These two difference community criteria generate diversity in community activities. The permanent residents are more engaged within the community during disaster through “gotong royong”. The research outcome would provide a well-prepared and resilient community in combating disasters in future. This is inspired by social experience concept from Duran (1992) who mention social experience as "an individual's desire for and experience with communication in novel contexts”.

Keyword: Flood Disaster, Social Experience, “Gotong Royong”, Urban Area, Indonesia