Yet, in our little Oton, on the south central coast of Panay, we did not feel that much of her vengeful winds. The winds were reported to have been in the 150 to 175 kilometre range in the City of Iloilo but here in idyllic Oton, I’d be surprised if they were clocked in at more than 100 kilometres per hour.
A public service announcement made at about 1:40 PM let residents know that ILECO 1 (our power co-operative) would cut the power at 10:00 PM as a safety measure. Well, about 20 minutes later at about 2:00 PM BLACKOUT!
The winds buffeting us appeared to coming from the west southwest and appeared to be nothing more than a bad thunder storm. The our immense surprise at about 2:30 PM a transport truck arrived at our front door. The bottom feel out of me – I thought this was the municipality’s people travelling around the neighbouring Barangays to advise residents to move immediately to the local evacuation centres after all we are almost on the seashore and only less than a metre above sea-level and the municipality is prone to flooding. Yet, in Barangay Buray, we are a few metres higher and our own property is another couple metres higher than that. Although we weren’t around when FRANK hit in June of 2008 – there was no flooding in the area where home is, but there was in Oton Town and some of the other surrounding Barangays.
To our immense surprise the truck that arrived was delivering Balikbayan Boxes – wow in a raging storm they are delivering our care package from Canada complete with assorted canned goods and what must be a case of “KD” and another of canned Heinz Pork and Beans all accompanied by jars of ‘real’ coffee and to my amazement a couple jars of Libby’s Wine Sauerkraut, something I’ve craved for the past two years – my hot dogs will now be ‘world class’…OH JOY…I know now that I definitely won’t be going hungry any time soon.
So the truck leaves, and moments later, the wind seems to be increasing and one tree at the side of the property tumbles. I immediately though that that would be the first of several around our home.
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Please note no ‘animals’ were injured…But now the rain is intensifying and so is the wind, but it’s clearly not 175 Kilometres per hour – not even close…I am starting to settle down, my fears and the worry I had going into this were no lessening as time went by. According to the reports we were hearing on Radio Bombo, I am told, that the storm took anywhere between 6 and 8 hours to pass any specific point. We were now at somewhere around 6:45 PM and the winds and the rain seemed to be subsiding, I remember thinking: ‘ Praise be to you LORD, I think the Calvary is near it’s end! Please let it be so’. And sure as shootin’ the rain and the winds completely stopped at about 7:15 PM, although we did have on and off drizzle for the next few hours – the worst was over and really it wasn’t so bad at least, here. I felt really sorry for all those up north who had and will continue to suffer enormously earlier today and in the weeks to come. But here, our family and property came through with only the loss of one medium sized tree. Thank you Lord!
But my worries, are not over. I am the Homeowners Association president in our Village and responsible for Safety and Order. I was concerned that more trees in the complex may have toppled and caused more serious damage. She Who Must be Obeyed was adamant that I was not to leave our property in darkness because of the danger posed by possible downed power lines etc…despite that the power lines had been de-energized much earlier in the day. But she had a good point – it would be dangerous to be roaming around in total darkness not knowing what to expect.
The house was dark after 6:30 PM (we were trying to conserve the power in our re-chargeable lights and everyone was in bed and asleep by 8:30PM. For me the heat was oppressive and no matter what I just couldn’t sleep. So, What’s to do Lord, what’s to do? I know, read a good book, excellent idea – I have two or three that I really want to read. Where are they?
Idiot!
It’s dark and there’s no light available except for the rechargeable flashlights and we need to preserve their power in case we need them during the night. So I resigned myself to my fate. I tossed and turned all night bathed in sweat – the pillow and the sheets were wringing wet in no time. So, I changed into some dry clothes and paced or sat on the front porch just watching and listening for the rest of the night. It was eerily quiet – no wind, not a single sound except for the occasional dog barking and then closer to dawn the damned roosters started crowing…where’s the shotgun when you need it?
In any event, dawn on 9th November broke early and it looked like we were in for a beautiful day. I put the kettle on the gas stove to get things ready for the early morning coffee rush. And at the first sign of life elsewhere in the house I grabbed my trusty SONY Cybershot Camera and headed out to check the Village Complex.
I was surprised again by the fact that there didn’t appear to be any damage except for the perimeter fence, of bamboo construction, which was down in several locations and only two other trees. The drainage canal along the property line was flowing well with more water than I had ever seen in it, leaves and small debris everywhere – a small clean-up effort by individual property owners was all that would be need at even at 6:00 AM people where out all ready taking care of business.
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I’ve done the circuit and spoken with a half dozen of so Villagers and none report any appreciable damage except for the occasion bamboo fence that came down, no injuries – we’re good! Everyone is safe and sound!
Home, and the place is really starting to hum. I walk in and She Who Must be Obeyed, her sister and sister-in-law are attacking the Balikbayan box – unpacking it like little over excited girls opening their presents at Christmas. It’s really fun to watch and listen to comments…I’m sure many of you have experienced that yourselves, so you know what I’m talking about.
The coffee is great this morning – I take my time savouring it, every single last drop of it…then one more cup with toast and KRAFT PEANUT BUTTER – could anything be better? I don’t know…well, hold on there – there are a couple of things that could beat that – how about a real hotdog with sauerkraut and real French’s Yellow Mustard – not the sweet Filipino style mustard , which is all you can around here…and it’s awful.
The heat and the humidity were oppressive and it turned out that this Saturday, November 9th it turned out that it would be a 5 t-shirt and underwear change day…not a big deal when you think of the people up north who lost absolutely everything including many, many who lost family members despite the precautions most took. There’s not much you can do when face with winds of over 310 kilometres per hour and storm surges said to be in the 5 metre range. Absolutely ghastly. The folks in Tacloban have no food or water or electricity. The Philippines Armed Forces are using every resource to fly-in need supplies including food, medicines and through the Red Cross of the Philippines water purification plants. Only the runway and taxi ways at the Tacloban Airport are still functional, the roads into town are effectively unusable and it’s going to take a while to get the supplies flown in to the people most in need. In fact we heard that it will take a least a couple of months for electricity to be restored – that’s really incredible, how will people manage in such conditions.
My brother-in-law Pad and his wife Gin Gin had to go to the market in Oton to get something for Jaira at the drug store. She’s suffering from a very serious respiratory infection and was running short on her meds. I was surprised to see the road flooded on our way.
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Only a sheen about 2 inches deep covering the road for a very short distance. Nothing more serious, no mass destruction, thank God.
On Monday morning, the cell phones were hard at work. Joemarie – a second cousin of She Who Must be Obeyed, who lives with us and helps out a lot around the place got a call from people he know ‘up North’ announcing some sad news. His 20 year old youngest brother had apparently perished in the storm when it hit Pontevedra in Capiz, near Roxas City where Yolanda destroyed most of the area after leaving Samar and Leyte.
Joemarie, getting ready to head North
Joemarie left immediately to try to find him and return him home. It took him most of Monday to reach the affected area because of the conditions. It’s only about 90 kilometres, a trip which back home would take about an hour, but here, under normal circumstances it usually take about 2 to 2½ hours – because the ‘National Highway’ between here and there is a two lane road and under construction most of the time. Well, today it took Joemarie almost 8 hours to get there. He searched everywhere on Monday evening, Tuesday all day and finally on Wednesday, he found him alive and well and helping out with whatever he could do to help others who were worse off than he was. That’s a good ending. Joemarie once he had found him had a great reunion with him, they hadn’t seen each other for the better part of the year and on Thursday, he headed back home.
At this point, you might say, ‘hey Fergus where’s the beef’. You’ve talked about the mass destruction and mayhem caused by Yolanda. Please show us what you are talking about. Well, here is a collection of photos we have assembled from various media, eight days after the fact, to try to show you what those folks in the north have had to endure.
We could go on an on, there are just so many photos of the devastation, but you get the general picture. It is something I have never witnessed in person, this close up and I don’t want to have it happen again…but it will.
Thanks for visiting with us, please come back tomorrow for the last instalment of the story.
