Bagyong Ondoy is the local name. Typhoon Ketsana is the international name. Take your pick, either way it was a devastating experience for the people of the Philippines yesterday, September 26, 2009.
Lemme share my own personal experience. So at around 10:20 in the morning, I went out under the storm to head to Katipunan to hand over some documents I printed out for Kai for her Marketing class the night before. The rain was coming down hard, yet I found myself driving smack dab in the midst of it all. Luckily I didn't meet much traffic until just before Katipunan. I was stuck in slow moving traffic for an hour, and already both Kai and my mom had told me to head back home. So I wasn't one to complain.
The rain was, to say the least, unforgiving. Not only were there strong winds, the heavy rain was coming down non-stop. I admit, it was such a challenge braving the little flooded areas heading to UP - where I passed - and went to Fine Arts to pick up my sister. A lot of areas around UP Diliman campus was flooded, so we had to go around to find a less flooded road to travel through.
One of my sister's classmates hitched a ride with us, and she became a key part in our journey to brave the traffic and heavy rains to get to Commonwealth. The car - my dad's -'s aircon was on the fritz one reason or another, and it was getting quite foggy inside the car. As we were driving through UP all of us were literally wiping the accumulated fog from the windshields and windows to at least have some visibility to the side mirrors. Even my sister's friend pitched in, wiping the back.
We found our way out of UP after failed attempts at trying to see if the gate at Ylanan Road was open. Sadly it wasn't. Finally, we got out at Balara and chartered the way all the way to Tandang Sora. In the slow moving traffic of Balara, I received calls from my parents, asking us how things were, and texts from Kai, who was worried about how things were above her own situation stranded in school. D8
It was past 1 in the afternoon when I bothered to check the time as we were in Balara. We even got into a little casualty. Because of the rain and fog, my sister didn't see that the right front tire had hit a small rock (and I say rock because it's quite big), leaving us stuck for a little bit. After a bit of debate of what to do, me and my sister's friend got out of the car and tried to move the stuff and helped the car move back enough to get past the small obstacle.
After constant wiping of the fog and the back defogger making slow progress, we finally reached Commonwealth and to our surprise, saw it as open as the it ever was. The final hurdle, as I called it. We dropped my sister's friend down at one of the pedestrian overpasses and made the last few kilometers into our subdivision.
During our drive and I had already drenched both sleeves of my long shirt with fog, my sister and I talked about how lucky we were that we were together, otherwise we'd have already met an accident if we were alone. That being the case, it was when my sister finally sounded the horn outside our house did we scream out 'FINALLY!!!' to each other, touched down in our garage at quarter to 3 in the afternoon.
The latter events that followed - the blackout for 4 hours at our subdivision - was unimportant. I feel very strongly to all the victims of this Typhoon, especially those in the areas of Marikina, Cainta and Pasig. This was the first that I've bothered to pay attention to the news channels and be updated with this natural disaster, hoping against hope that everybody is fighting to stay alive and surviving amidst this catastrophe.
I'm grateful that my family and I did not see any floods collect here around our house, but I worry still for my friends and relatives who may have been greatly or even partially affected by this disaster.
Kai's family, especially, has been greatly affected by it. And to me that's something to very much worried about. But I'm happy to report that her mother and grandmother, who were left stranded on the rooftop of their house most of the day yesterday, have been attended to by Kai's uncles and will be making trips back to their house in the coming days to see what they can salvage of their belongings. R.I.P. to Kai's lovebirds who died during the Typhoon. )8 You four will be missed.
My thoughts go out to all other victims. To all the students who were stranded in their respective schools, I hope you all have been cared for. Let's all do our part to help restore our country. I send a prayer to all those who did not make it through the night, people and animal alike.
In short, STOP CUTTING DOWN THE TREES!!!!! DDDDDD8
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