long and short of it, it was a fucking wet weekend.
So you guys must have heard over at CNN or something about the damn flood that hit Manila. Yup. It's a bad flood. The route in our area gets flooded all the time, but even through the strongest storms, we've never been flooded inside the house. NEVER. 26 years of my fucking life. Never. Until yesterday.
7 a.m.
I woke up and the rain was strong. I was worried that my cousins might get stuck in a flood since my cousins' homes always get flooded at least waist deep when the rains are strong. So I occasionally went on the watch out for news online and twitter feeds on updates.
8 a.m.
Neighbors started putting their cars on the basketball court in front of us. This is SOP for many of the cars who live in the lower areas here just to avoid sinking their cars in the flood. We don't move our cars since our area's the highest point in our area. As I said, it never gets flooded before, so yeah, we thought it was safe.
9-12 p.m.
I was tagging around, actually when my mom finally got text from my cousins asking if we had a rope so that they could cross the road to our neighbour's house who has around three floors. So my mom panicked. Knowing we had no ropes, I gave our excess lan cable from our internet and gave it to my uncle who was more worried about the cable dangling in front of our house than bringing down than my cousins from their room. Anyway, he left after I fixed the cable and came back a few minutes later, saying he can't move on because a block down our road, the flood has reached chest level and he couldn't pass the road to my cousin's since the barangay tanod told him that the current was too strong. When he got back, I was eating my breakfast (the other night's tinola) and heard the news. I new something bad was bound to happen since water was pooling at our backyard. When water went in the kitchen, I knew we're done. And at that time, the only thing in my head was my cousins who can't get out of their house. We tried calling the local barangay but the phone line died.
12-3 p.m.
So we started moving our things, wading through the flood thigh deep and later hip deep in our house. CHRISSIE, I SAVED MY JIMMY CHOO!!! and a bunch of other shoes. When things started to get higher, we moved the rest of whatever was electrical on the ground to some place higher. I carried my TV all the way up to the second floor. SUPI, I SAVED YOUR PS2!! Some of my mangas were downstairs and when water seeped in our living room, I carried it up with my mom and uncle to the table. We thought it'd be safe there but an hour later, it reached that table (the table is mid calf-high) and we moved it to the plant ledges in our living room.
When it reached that point, I knew my car was gonna go under. I overheard some of the men around saying that if the car's not sunk, take out the batteries. So I went straight to my car and saw that all the cats were hiding in there and some water has seeped in. Got the toolkit, took out the batteries while the car alarm was blaring at my ears. My mom couldn't believe that the annoying car alarm was ours and when she heard it she's like "oh shit." With the car partly saved, we moved everything else in the living room. Our beloved IKEA sofa (barely got drenched) and some other things. What was funny at this time was our fridge was floating. So a good part of the afternoon, we were thinking of how to stop our fridge from floating. We managed to weigh it down with a big ass vase, empty gas tank and mineral water shite. At that time I took pictures of the damage and had electricity and managed to upload them online. http://www.flickr.com/photos/currypuff/ You can view the pictures there. After I uploaded the pictures, our electricity went off.
3-7 p.m.
When the electricity died, we decided to use my phone as radio. I managed to charge it to full when the electricity is up. Mom needed to make a couple of texts and contact some people but we ran out of load. So I knew it was impossible to buy load if everything's under so I made an SOS to Teng who might have a place near theirs to buy load. She sent it in time and we managed to make calls (or try to) at the national disaster council and Radio ng Bayan WHICH IS A BLESSING SINCE IT'S THE ONLY FM RADIO STATION NOT PLAYING FUCKING SONGS. When you're wet and damp, the last thing you really want to hear is music.
My mom, uncle, and I moved the gas stove upstairs so that at least we could cook. The plan was I cook some things so that if my cousins managed to pass through the flood, they have warm food waiting for them. So, I started cooking. There were some things I needed to get downstairs but since my mom took a bath already (she's been swimming in that murky flood a lot more than I did) i decided to go down. I went down our stairs and since a portion of that was under flood, I slipped three flights down and just to avoid cracking my head, I used my left hand to prop myself up, but to my bane, my hand gave out and I landed on my hips and went under for a bit. It fucking hurts that I screamed in pain for the first time since fucking ever. I sat on the higher part of our stairs just to see the damage. My hips hurt but I could still move my legs. On the other hand, I couldn't move my left hand. When the pain was tad bearable, I walked to get the things I needed to make our supper.
I went upstairs not knowing if I broke my hand. I can't move it. When I do, it's like my muscles are being pulled apart with just a centimeter of movement (this is still true now). I texted my friends and Teng was nice to give me some first aid since I clearly can't leave and go out to a clinic or hospital or any medical person nearby (the area's still flooded) so I did what she suggested and my mom found the bandages I use for my sprain and that helped a little. At least I managed to isolate the pain to my thumb and my four fingers are still moving. This is good, but it's only now I realized how truly important a thumb is for the littlest of things. APPRECIATE YOUR THUMBS PEOPLE!! I can't lift stuff anymore but I can't exactly cut things the way I want to. It hurts to move it. I checked it last night, it's batshit swollen. I think I pulled a muscle since I managed to bend my thumb this morning, but it still hurts to move it in general. I think my palm's shot. Hopefully there's an emergency something at the church today. I'll have them check it.
7 p.m.-12 a.m.
Managed to cook three dishes: rice, a udon-esque stock of pork and chicken and sardines pasta. With one bloody hand!! By now the flood has settled and my mom managed to clean out the water from outside. I couldn't help much with my injury now. All I can do is cook. My mom and I decided to walk to my cousins' place to give them aid. Sadly, down the corner the flood was still chest high so we decided not to push it. An hour and a half later, my uncle came telling us what happened to them. Now this is quite remarkable.
At 10 a.m. the flood has reached to their necks and honestly they thought they'd die trapped in their house since they can't go out since they have 2 babies and 2 non-swimmers. One of my cousins was a good swimmer so my uncle asked him to head out and get some help. Scared of the live wire near their house, he decided to head on the roof. He saw a hole in the roof and thought if he could take out the roofing, he can pull his family out. So while screaming for help on their rooftop, he was yanking their roofing. Their neighbor behind them caught wind of the SOS and a good number of able men helped my cousin yank the roofing out.
Now, how to get my cousins out in a chin-deep flood. These men ended up going inside their home and went in the flood and told my cousins and my uncle to use them as stepping stool so they can get to the roof. Can you imagine, offering themselves like that, putting themselves in danger first just to save my god children and cousins. They saved the baby, my god child, my cousin and her friend, my aunt and my uncle. They took refuge in the second floor of my neighbor's place and they pretty much kept dry there.
They were lucky. Their neighbor's family was stuck in the roof during the entire deluge.
Anyway, we fed my uncle and gave him flashlight and umbrella to ferry the kids to our place. An hour later, the kids were at our place and we gave them dry clothes and we cracked stories about the flood since in our family, when things like this hit us, it's best to just crack a joke to lighten the mood up.
For example, sometime when our living room was going under, my mom was looking at her aquarium. I'm like "If they go under, at least they won't drown." My mom laughed a bit and said "That's right. If they get lost, I'll find them and pick them up one by one." Later on, since our fridge floated and got some water in, my mom was worried about her hopia, this chinese pastry with mung bean paste in it. In the middle of the night she cried "MY HOPIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" and I asked what's up and she cried to me that her las packet of hopia was in the fridge and must be soggy already. orz. after all the things we save, she didn't save her favorite snack. lol.
Teng, I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to you since I was catering to my cousins and only managed to check my phone around three.
Present day. Present time
I'm late for breakfast actually. Electricity only came back around three and I was in limbo until four since my hand was stinging again. I took it out of the bandage since I felt blood wasn't circulating.
We're out of dry clean clothes since we lent it to my cousins. We're slowly cleaning up and I've been tasked to take care of the kitchen. One thing that really helped was I had my lighter for my cigarette and at night, I was just lighting candles and stoves left and right. I smoked my last stick last night and it was nice enough to ease the pain of my hand. It was really stressful but I'm just more than happy that our family's safe and dry. I can't deal with another death this year.
My cousin's husband who was stranded on the road yesterday just arrived this morning. o3o) I'm really glad he's safe.
I'm really grateful for yukitsu. we ran out of load at home and couldn't contact my cousins whom I mentioned above. So I asked for an SOS load. And we were able to contact relatives and ndcc thanks to it. left texts too to the radio ng bayan thingie to help my relatives during the earlier part of the day for rescue since we didn't know their status much apart from sparse texts. I really appreciated her making a personal effort to texting me randomly during the day and night when my electricity died (same for maman) asking me how I was. I mean I know my friends know that I'm a strong person, but you know, I'm just happy that someone like Teng was keeping up with me even when I'm tsundere about it. It really helped through the pain and waiting for a cockroach to crawl by. This time Teng, you really pulled through for me when I really needed it. And honestly, yesterday, I least expected it from you. The load was more than enough. I owe you fucking big time. If something happens to you, I'll swim over to your house (or wherever you are) without question, drop whatever shit that I am doing no matter how fucking fun they are. If I can't physically do that, I will return to you what you did for me tenfold and keep you company. You can fucking count on me on this one. Thanks a lot, hani.
I will be afk most of the time since we're gonna clean up this shitty mess and help my cousins tide through their own loss somewhere in between, I'll write a paper that's due friday.
Fuck, I can't even tie my hair.
7 a.m.
I woke up and the rain was strong. I was worried that my cousins might get stuck in a flood since my cousins' homes always get flooded at least waist deep when the rains are strong. So I occasionally went on the watch out for news online and twitter feeds on updates.
8 a.m.
Neighbors started putting their cars on the basketball court in front of us. This is SOP for many of the cars who live in the lower areas here just to avoid sinking their cars in the flood. We don't move our cars since our area's the highest point in our area. As I said, it never gets flooded before, so yeah, we thought it was safe.
9-12 p.m.
I was tagging around, actually when my mom finally got text from my cousins asking if we had a rope so that they could cross the road to our neighbour's house who has around three floors. So my mom panicked. Knowing we had no ropes, I gave our excess lan cable from our internet and gave it to my uncle who was more worried about the cable dangling in front of our house than bringing down than my cousins from their room. Anyway, he left after I fixed the cable and came back a few minutes later, saying he can't move on because a block down our road, the flood has reached chest level and he couldn't pass the road to my cousin's since the barangay tanod told him that the current was too strong. When he got back, I was eating my breakfast (the other night's tinola) and heard the news. I new something bad was bound to happen since water was pooling at our backyard. When water went in the kitchen, I knew we're done. And at that time, the only thing in my head was my cousins who can't get out of their house. We tried calling the local barangay but the phone line died.
12-3 p.m.
So we started moving our things, wading through the flood thigh deep and later hip deep in our house. CHRISSIE, I SAVED MY JIMMY CHOO!!! and a bunch of other shoes. When things started to get higher, we moved the rest of whatever was electrical on the ground to some place higher. I carried my TV all the way up to the second floor. SUPI, I SAVED YOUR PS2!! Some of my mangas were downstairs and when water seeped in our living room, I carried it up with my mom and uncle to the table. We thought it'd be safe there but an hour later, it reached that table (the table is mid calf-high) and we moved it to the plant ledges in our living room.
When it reached that point, I knew my car was gonna go under. I overheard some of the men around saying that if the car's not sunk, take out the batteries. So I went straight to my car and saw that all the cats were hiding in there and some water has seeped in. Got the toolkit, took out the batteries while the car alarm was blaring at my ears. My mom couldn't believe that the annoying car alarm was ours and when she heard it she's like "oh shit." With the car partly saved, we moved everything else in the living room. Our beloved IKEA sofa (barely got drenched) and some other things. What was funny at this time was our fridge was floating. So a good part of the afternoon, we were thinking of how to stop our fridge from floating. We managed to weigh it down with a big ass vase, empty gas tank and mineral water shite. At that time I took pictures of the damage and had electricity and managed to upload them online. http://www.flickr.com/photos/currypuff/ You can view the pictures there. After I uploaded the pictures, our electricity went off.
3-7 p.m.
When the electricity died, we decided to use my phone as radio. I managed to charge it to full when the electricity is up. Mom needed to make a couple of texts and contact some people but we ran out of load. So I knew it was impossible to buy load if everything's under so I made an SOS to Teng who might have a place near theirs to buy load. She sent it in time and we managed to make calls (or try to) at the national disaster council and Radio ng Bayan WHICH IS A BLESSING SINCE IT'S THE ONLY FM RADIO STATION NOT PLAYING FUCKING SONGS. When you're wet and damp, the last thing you really want to hear is music.
My mom, uncle, and I moved the gas stove upstairs so that at least we could cook. The plan was I cook some things so that if my cousins managed to pass through the flood, they have warm food waiting for them. So, I started cooking. There were some things I needed to get downstairs but since my mom took a bath already (she's been swimming in that murky flood a lot more than I did) i decided to go down. I went down our stairs and since a portion of that was under flood, I slipped three flights down and just to avoid cracking my head, I used my left hand to prop myself up, but to my bane, my hand gave out and I landed on my hips and went under for a bit. It fucking hurts that I screamed in pain for the first time since fucking ever. I sat on the higher part of our stairs just to see the damage. My hips hurt but I could still move my legs. On the other hand, I couldn't move my left hand. When the pain was tad bearable, I walked to get the things I needed to make our supper.
I went upstairs not knowing if I broke my hand. I can't move it. When I do, it's like my muscles are being pulled apart with just a centimeter of movement (this is still true now). I texted my friends and Teng was nice to give me some first aid since I clearly can't leave and go out to a clinic or hospital or any medical person nearby (the area's still flooded) so I did what she suggested and my mom found the bandages I use for my sprain and that helped a little. At least I managed to isolate the pain to my thumb and my four fingers are still moving. This is good, but it's only now I realized how truly important a thumb is for the littlest of things. APPRECIATE YOUR THUMBS PEOPLE!! I can't lift stuff anymore but I can't exactly cut things the way I want to. It hurts to move it. I checked it last night, it's batshit swollen. I think I pulled a muscle since I managed to bend my thumb this morning, but it still hurts to move it in general. I think my palm's shot. Hopefully there's an emergency something at the church today. I'll have them check it.
7 p.m.-12 a.m.
Managed to cook three dishes: rice, a udon-esque stock of pork and chicken and sardines pasta. With one bloody hand!! By now the flood has settled and my mom managed to clean out the water from outside. I couldn't help much with my injury now. All I can do is cook. My mom and I decided to walk to my cousins' place to give them aid. Sadly, down the corner the flood was still chest high so we decided not to push it. An hour and a half later, my uncle came telling us what happened to them. Now this is quite remarkable.
At 10 a.m. the flood has reached to their necks and honestly they thought they'd die trapped in their house since they can't go out since they have 2 babies and 2 non-swimmers. One of my cousins was a good swimmer so my uncle asked him to head out and get some help. Scared of the live wire near their house, he decided to head on the roof. He saw a hole in the roof and thought if he could take out the roofing, he can pull his family out. So while screaming for help on their rooftop, he was yanking their roofing. Their neighbor behind them caught wind of the SOS and a good number of able men helped my cousin yank the roofing out.
Now, how to get my cousins out in a chin-deep flood. These men ended up going inside their home and went in the flood and told my cousins and my uncle to use them as stepping stool so they can get to the roof. Can you imagine, offering themselves like that, putting themselves in danger first just to save my god children and cousins. They saved the baby, my god child, my cousin and her friend, my aunt and my uncle. They took refuge in the second floor of my neighbor's place and they pretty much kept dry there.
They were lucky. Their neighbor's family was stuck in the roof during the entire deluge.
Anyway, we fed my uncle and gave him flashlight and umbrella to ferry the kids to our place. An hour later, the kids were at our place and we gave them dry clothes and we cracked stories about the flood since in our family, when things like this hit us, it's best to just crack a joke to lighten the mood up.
For example, sometime when our living room was going under, my mom was looking at her aquarium. I'm like "If they go under, at least they won't drown." My mom laughed a bit and said "That's right. If they get lost, I'll find them and pick them up one by one." Later on, since our fridge floated and got some water in, my mom was worried about her hopia, this chinese pastry with mung bean paste in it. In the middle of the night she cried "MY HOPIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" and I asked what's up and she cried to me that her las packet of hopia was in the fridge and must be soggy already. orz. after all the things we save, she didn't save her favorite snack. lol.
Teng, I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to you since I was catering to my cousins and only managed to check my phone around three.
Present day. Present time
I'm late for breakfast actually. Electricity only came back around three and I was in limbo until four since my hand was stinging again. I took it out of the bandage since I felt blood wasn't circulating.
We're out of dry clean clothes since we lent it to my cousins. We're slowly cleaning up and I've been tasked to take care of the kitchen. One thing that really helped was I had my lighter for my cigarette and at night, I was just lighting candles and stoves left and right. I smoked my last stick last night and it was nice enough to ease the pain of my hand. It was really stressful but I'm just more than happy that our family's safe and dry. I can't deal with another death this year.
My cousin's husband who was stranded on the road yesterday just arrived this morning. o3o) I'm really glad he's safe.
I'm really grateful for yukitsu. we ran out of load at home and couldn't contact my cousins whom I mentioned above. So I asked for an SOS load. And we were able to contact relatives and ndcc thanks to it. left texts too to the radio ng bayan thingie to help my relatives during the earlier part of the day for rescue since we didn't know their status much apart from sparse texts. I really appreciated her making a personal effort to texting me randomly during the day and night when my electricity died (same for maman) asking me how I was. I mean I know my friends know that I'm a strong person, but you know, I'm just happy that someone like Teng was keeping up with me even when I'm tsundere about it. It really helped through the pain and waiting for a cockroach to crawl by. This time Teng, you really pulled through for me when I really needed it. And honestly, yesterday, I least expected it from you. The load was more than enough. I owe you fucking big time. If something happens to you, I'll swim over to your house (or wherever you are) without question, drop whatever shit that I am doing no matter how fucking fun they are. If I can't physically do that, I will return to you what you did for me tenfold and keep you company. You can fucking count on me on this one. Thanks a lot, hani.
I will be afk most of the time since we're gonna clean up this shitty mess and help my cousins tide through their own loss somewhere in between, I'll write a paper that's due friday.
Fuck, I can't even tie my hair.