Recollections from the "Storm Week"

*sorry folks, no pictures this time. It was either the phone had no bat or my hands were too dirty. :P

It has been 9 days since Tropical Storm "Ondoy" (Intl name: Ketsana) ravaged the land and dumped tons of water on the unsuspecting Metro, resulting in massive widespread flooding, displacing thousands of families and resulting in hundreds of deaths, not to mention the billions of pesos worth of property ruined by the flood waters..

After riding out the storm at the aforementioned gas station (see previous post), I decided to make my way home at around 9:15 PM since traffic was already flowing smoothly and I was getting really bored as well. :P I had initially planned to go home by 10pm just to make sure that all the flooding along my route home would have subsided, but thought better of it since almost everyone waiting at the gas station had already left, and it WAS pretty dark there too..

Before leaving, I had been intermittently listening to the radio for news about the flooding. Apparently, it was a total disaster all over. Text messages were being sent to the radio stations with pleas for help. People were stranded upon rooftops because the water level had risen too quickly for then to get out of their homes. Hardest hit were the areas of Marikina, Pasig, certain areas of Quezon City, and most of Rizal province. The major roadways going in and out of Manila (and even the mighty EDSA itself) were at a standstill, as flooding has rendered them impassable. Ill-prepared rescue teams were being scrambled all around, and at times even the rescue teams themselves were stalled because the waters were just too deep at certain points. I never thought this would happen here as images of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans came to mind. Truly, climate change had come to retaliate for Mother Nature, and we have no one to blame but ourselves..

After gassing up (just in case), I said a little prayer and drove off. The ride home was mostly uneventful, save for the slight flooding I encountered when I turned left at Scout Albano from Quezon Avenue. Good thing it was pretty shallow, and I managed to get the vehicle through that short stretch (I was advised to avoid EDSA and so I had to go the longer way home). Although the rains ahad already stopped for quite some time, I still proceeded cautiously, passing areas which had been blacked out. I finally arrived home at 10 pm, much to  the relief of my family who had been keeping vigil until I got home. Dad himself was stranded in downtown Manila and decided to set up camp at a small local hotel. When I got out of the car, the first thing I noticed was the stench in the air which smelled faintly of garbage and soil mixed together. It didn't really smell as bad as, say, crap, but it hung everywhere like a gloomy cloud. Some of the movable big stuff we had at the ground floor (like dining chairs and electric fans for example) had been moved outside the house because mom and bro had been cleaning up when they got home. The stairs going up were littered with stuff salvaged from the rising waters like shoes, books, and so on. I was unable to grasp the entirety of the destruction since it was really dark at the time. I was also astounded to find that the ceiling in the master's bedroom had leaked onto the bed a a result of the roof drains being clogged.. Good thing it was only partially soaked and was still usable. Before going to bed, I took stock of everything that happened.. At least all the members of my family were ok. We were without power and phone but at least we had running water.. sigh.. I slept like a rock that night, unsure of what the next day would bring..

I awoke to the sound of mom sweeping the laundry area downstairs. I went down and realized that things weren't really that bad, or so I thought.. When mom and bro got home at around 6pm, the waters have already receded, but they were greeted by the sight of upturned chairs, soaked papers strewn all about, and mud EVERYWHERE!! There was a visible water line delineating where the muck had risen. I realized that they had done a pretty good job on the initial cleanup. The floor was already spotless when I got home, and the walls were already scrubbed down. Even the downstairs CR which was below street level had already been cleaned up somewhat. Thankfully, we had a little help from our people who were likewise trapped by the flooding. I'm really grateful to my uncle who came in when the waters had not yet really risen and saved my precious new edition of Harrison's and my brother's laptop.

I went outside to help mom with whatever she was doing and saw the front porch/garage/front lawn.. Whoa!! Garbage all over the place, a desk on it's side, and mud covering pretty much everything at or below waist level. We borrowed a window cleaner(?) and used it as a kind of "water rake" (sorry, don't know the right term :P) to move the muck out while mom hosed stuff down. Eventually, things got cleaned up as the pile of garbage grew higher and higher. At around 9 AM, my uncle asked me to accompany him to go and fetch dad from downtown. Apparently it was a blessing that I wasn't home at the time of the flood, as the other vehicles parked at the house had been flooded in and were unusable. Before going there, we thought of grabbing breakfast for our families, so we drove to the nearby McDonald's, which turned out to be closed because of extreme flood damage (it was sitting beside a creek, and I found out later that the flooding there was around 5-6 feet!). So we then went to the nearby panaderia which made excellent pan de sal. A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea, and we were told that we had to wait 20 minutes for another batch that was still in the oven because they had already sold out the first batch. Trying at a different bakery yielded the same result. To kill time, we decided to just go ahead and try to make our way to Manila, but we turned back around 3/4 of the way since the area was still heavily flooded. My uncle and I returned home triumphantly with our freshly-baked bread and our famished families eagerly wolfed them down (since we had been working on our houses for quite some time now).

While on the road, I noted the water lines on the walls of those hard-hit areas. A lot of areas we passed through had water lines higher than the average car!! That's some deep water! I chanced upon one of those big provincial jeepneys that brings produce to the markets is Manila, and realized that it was running quite late since those jeeps usually deliver their stuff before the break of dawn.

After finding renewed strength with the help of the delicious pan de sal, we soldiered on, cleaning up and tossing stuff out. Dad was eventually fetched at around 3 in the afternoon, and we then had our dinner at the local hypermart. Man, I'll never look at chicken inasal the same way again!! :P We also went there to get some batteries for our flashlights since we still had no power, but thought better of it when we saw all the lines. Since a lot of people were hit by the storm, I'm assuming that their stores of food were ruined by the flooding as well. Our beloved refrigerator was a victim too and we had to empty her out, but since the water level wasn't so high, it was back in working order after cleanup and is now once again silently purring in the kitchen. :P

When we got home, Hallelujah! The streetlamps were on!! We had power! :D Dad switched on the breaker power for the entire 2nd floor and the ground floor lights ONLY (since the water level had risen higher than the power outlets). Phone lines were restored a little later, so everything was returning to normal.. somewhat..

When we switched on the TV, the devastation caused by the storm came to light.. Entire subdivisions with two-storey homes were totally submerged underwater. Riverside communities were totally washed away. The storm had dropped a month's worth of rain on the metro in a span of 24 hours. The dams were filled to capacity and had to be opened lest they break, thus causing more flooding and the persistence of high water levels in certain areas. This storm seems to have been a great equalizer, affecting rich and poor alike. A relatively affluent neighborhood in Marikina whose residents included movie stars was one of the hardest hit by the flooding.

The next few days found us doing more cleanups, and I was so busy helping out at home that I had almost forgotten that I had applied for residency and was supposed to be entering pre-residency soon.. In the days before, I thought that my chance of receiving the text from my hospital of choice to go be a pre-res was getting slimmer. Imagine my surprise when in the midst of cleaning up, I received a phone call on my cell from an unknown number. Lo and behold, it was the chief resident of the department I was applying for! He told me that I had been accepted as a pre-resident and was inviting me to come to their office for a meeting/orientation with the training officer! :D What a relief!! I have been dealing with feelings of uncertainty ever since I passed my application 3 months ago, since I considered this as a "gamble". The Lord is really good to me, and he has led me on to this path and guided me all the way. :D Thank you!!

I was so ecstatic that I felt I could clean the entire house all by myself. :P So I tried, and when all the adrenaline wore off, my body was really sore from all that scrubbing, lifting, etc. :P

Orientation day came and went. We drew lots to see who would be assigned to what batch. Luckily I drew 2nd since there was still a lot of cleaning up to do. To date, I'd say we are 70% done with the cleanup. The bulk of the work that remains is setting aside dad's books and other stuff from his study (which had been displaced as a result of a bookcase collapsing and a cabinet being thrown out). At least everything is almost done, right? :P

All this time, there have been numerous blessings that came our way despite the calamity:

- The fact that I was able to survive being stranded (for the first time at that!) unscathed is something to be really thankful for, especially being adjacent to important u-turns or exit points at just the right moments.. ;) There's also the food lady and the little improvised wee-bag.. hehe

- Though stranded, I knew the rest of the family was safe, with dad neatly holed up in a hotel near the office and mom and bro stuck in a well-stocked shopping center until they were picked up by an uncle

- Despite having only a half-full battery on my cellphone, I was miraculously able to conserve the power until I got home.

- My mom and bro ran out of bat sometime during the day and thus lost all means of communication with me and dad. Luckily, bro thought of using the the older phone we had already retired (and I had luckily charged it to full before putting it in storage. Talk about LUCK!)

- Many thanks to my god-sister Shel who went out of her way to bring us lunch while we were in the midst of the first day of cleanup. Thanks shobs! You're the best super chef talaga! :D

- Thanks to Ate Peachy, the daughter of a family friend, who brought us packed food that we had for dinner on the second day (we haven't been cooking right away because the LPG tank connected to the stove was lying on it's side after the flood, and mom was scared of a possible leak)

- My uncle who, despite the flooding at his own house, took the time and effort to save some of the really important stuff at our place.. Thank you so much...

- The call from the chief resident.. Thank you doc, for the really good news which brightened up my day despite everything that had happened.

The relief from surviving the storm was short-lived, as there was news of a more powerful super-typhoon headed towards the country.. At one point, this storm was projected to have the strength of a category 5 hurricane (putting things in perspective, Katrina was a category 3..). People began fervently praying for intercession, as many areas were still flooded and thousands of families were just recovering from the shock and devastation this storm had wrought. People warily began to follow the weather reports more closely. I myself tuned in every hour to see the latest reports from CNN and PAGASA for the storm's current location at the time and where it was plotted to move next.

It was kind of miraculous in a way.. The storm was on a northwestward course, and was projected to hit the already-battered cities and municipalities of Metro Manila, but then, something must've happened.. The storm was altering it's course and was undertaking a more northward path! People within the Metro were nervously awaiting the arrival of the storm, ready to move stuff or move out should the need arise, but thankfully it never happened. Besides a few intermittent strong showers and a continuously cloudy day, we never experienced really strong effects of the storm. Our hearts and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters in northern Luzon who were directly affected by this second calamity. At least the government was able to to something right, with preventive evacuations saving lives and minimizing casualties from this second storm. You can buy back or make stuff that you've lost, but human life can never ever be replaced..

Now, it's back to the daily grind for most of the people in the Metro. Storefronts are being cleaned up, businesses are resuming operations, and even I'm back behind my clinic desk. ;) A semblance of normalcy is now taking shape, but that still doesn't change the fact that thousands of our brothers and sisters are still displaced or are still stuck in their homes with little to no relief..

You have to applaud the spirit of the Filipino people, finding humor in the most dire situations, but also the spirit of "Bayanihan". As soon as the calls went out, people who were barely affected began extending whatever help they can in the form of relief goods, medical missions, and what have you. I'm sure there were also many individual acts of heroism that mostly go undocumented due to the gravity of the entire situation. Sadly, we have to take the power of the human condition with a grain of salt, because although it may be true that calamities sometimes bring out the best in people, it may bring out the worst in them as well.. Reports of unscrupulous individuals selling much-needed relief goods to starving refugees who have no other choice.. or people who refuse to stand in line and instead find ways to get double rations amidst the chaos while other people who try to follow the rules get nothing.. and now I've recently heard that the stupid government is ordering a freeze on international aid coming into the country with the intent of taxing them before they can be distributed here.. it's just sickening... :( and to think I was starting to believe that the government could do something good for the people for a change when they evacuated the danger areas in the path of "Pepeng" (Intl name: Parma)..