Typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana Slowly Killed People’s Apathy Including Mine

In the face of politics, adversities and calamities, I usually turn my apathetic shoulder coz I don’t want to feel hopeless or depressed about these things. I know I can only do so much and I know my limitations. Take for instance last Saturday… I logged off from work at around 8AM. Despite not having the chance to sleep yet, I was excited about my scheduled activities for that day. I was supposed to meet up  with new friends and acquaintances and I was pretty excited. 10AM, we picked up my girlfriend Pie from our village. It was raining hard but we really didn’t think much about it. After all, it’s always raining and I sort of got used to it.

“Oblivious to the devastation around us…”

Minutes along SLEX turned into 2+ hours and we haven’t even reached Bicutan yet.  We tried to take pictures to pass the time… But I started to get worried… We don’t listen to the news you see, so we didn’t know what was really going on. Peter was starting to get pissed off with the traffic, especially with this vehicle that kept cutting everyone while blasting its siren. Peter even asked me to take a photo of it so he can report it. In retrospect, I’m thinking that maybe the driver of this vehicle had a real emergency to go to considering that the whole Metro was being flooded unbeknownst to us:

At past 12 noon, I decided to cancel all my activities and Peter decided to turn back. He saw a u-turn spot being opened by the construction guys along SLEX so he took it. We thought we could immediately go home after that and just simply relax. Again, it took us another 2-3 hours before we were able to reach FILINVEST exit. Along the way, flood was rising especially in front of Hillsborough subdivision and we saw rubber boats being carried by men.

 This was the less flooded portion of West Service Road. We just passed by the area where water was already waist deep.

Earlier on, my brother started texting me. He’s in Marikina and there was flood everywhere. My sister and mom started texting me too asking how we were and if we’re okay.  Apparently, San Mateo was floodiing so quickly and they didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do either. We were stuck in SLEX for the longest time, hungry and thirsty.  I just told them to take everything to a higher ground and to keep safe.They had no electricity so I told them to save the cellphone batteries they have left and resreve their load for real emergencies.

When we reached Filinvest, we decided to look for a place to stay since West Service Road seemed impassable. We had the smaller car with us and we didn’t want to risk  damaging it by going through the flood. We stayed at a gas station coz we needed to pee (after 5 hours on the road, our kidneys were bursting!). Most stores were closed too. We transfered to South Supermarket and stayed at North Park where we had a nice hot meal… our first meal for the day. I was really beginning to panic deep inside. Aside from worrying about my family, I was partly worried about our house too. I know there’s a leak on the kitchen wall that we haven’t had the time to fix and the drain at the balcony sometimes gets clogged by the leaves of my potted plants. I tried to ignore these alarming thoughts.

At around 6 pm, we reached our house to find out that my fears came true.Our kitchen was flooded and so was our bedroom, main bathroom and study room which were all on the second floor.  Tsk, tsk, tsk. I was cleaning the entire kitchen and second floor until 11pm.  I let Peter sleep this whole time coz I know how tired he was from the long and difficult drive plus he hasn’t been sleeping well for the past week due to his kind of work.

Come 11pm, the house looked quite decent again. I took a shower and relaxed with my hubby who was then awake as we watched TRUST ME, a funny TV series about advertising people which helps me understand Peter’s life some more. Then Ade, texted. He was so sweet. I guess some of our friends got worried coz we haven’t been online all day. That’s when I turned on my PC and saw the things happening all around…My God! The devastation… what we had to go through that day was nothing compared to what was happening to many people out there… suffering the severe effects of typhoon Ondoy.  It was overwhelming.  To think that I was feeling sorry coz we only had a jar of water left in the fridge, a bar of Toblerone, Marty’s chicharon and Vita Plus for late dinner.  We didn’t know that more people had it much worse. Things like this make me emotionally weak. Peter warned me against looking online or listening to the news coz he knows me better. But I promised him and myself that I will try not to be weakened by the situation. Instead, in my own little way, I started coordinating some more with my family first, making sure they are safe. My brother can’t be contacted at that point. Every few hours I texted my mom. I didn’t want to waste the little cellphone battery she had left so as long as I know they’re fine, I can sleep well. But they weren’t. They were running out of food and water and my brother was most probbaly stranded penniless, waterless and hungry. It was only the next day that I got news of my brother’s safety. And it was only today that we found out that Peter’s grandma was already found and is safe. BUT, our house in Bulacan got flooded up to waist level and Peter’s grandma’s house got flooded as well.

The entire thing is a wake up call for all of us. We are definitely living in the Age of Stupid  and  I know it will take a global overhaul for our world to be saved from extinction. Otherwise, it’s Mother Nature who will overhaul us like what’s already been happening in this decade. I don’t even want to think about that.

Anyway, thank God for people on Plurk, Facebook, Twitter and other microblogging and social networking sites,  more and more people sprung to action and tripled their efforts  in saving people’s lives.

This is goin to be a long journey. Even after Ondoy is gone, there’s still so much to build, so many lives to help. Not to mention that two more typhoons are scheduled to enter the country come Oct. 1. Let’s all pray and work together that we survive all this. Personally, I am praying for a miracle that the next two typhoons won’t hit our country. And if they do, I hope we can survive them. WE NEED ALL THE HELP WE CAN GET.

The following are some Ondoy-related sites I collected from plurks and tweets of online friends for more information:

http://digg.com/world_news/The_Philippines_Needs_YOUR_Help

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/09/28/09/new-storms-may-hit-rp-pagasa

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/youth/09/28/09/volunteerism-age-facebook-twitter

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2462589&id=80770637551

http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/earegister.html

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=9.3&lon=142.8&zoom=6&type=hyb&rad=0&wxsn=0&svr=0&cams=0&sat=0&riv=0&mm=0&hur=1&hur.wr=0&hur.cod=1&hur.fx=1&hur.obs=1&fire=0&ft=0&sl=0

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2541120&id=537367821&ref=nf

http://www.theage.com.au/world/philippine-man-loses-own-life-after-saving-dozens-from-floods-20090928-g8o4.html

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090928-227233/Netizens-help-victims-via-social-network-sites

http://www.typhoon2000.ph/

Here are some EMERGENCY NUMBERS you can call:

National Disaster Coordinating Council - 912-2112 / 911-1873 / 912-2665

Cainta - 387-2992

Meralco - 631-2222

Manila Water - 1627