Ondoy

Well. I guess we all have our own Ondoy stories.

This one is mine. Probably not as intense as other's, but to me, it's still something quite... what's the word? Ah. Nevermind.

Just scroll down. :D

So I was in bed the whole Saturday morning. Asleep, as usual.

The weather was cool and all, so I didn't notice that the fan was turned off.

I woke up to the sounds of my dad blabbing on and on about stuff. What exactly, I don't remember, but it's most probably about the fact that it's flooding downstairs. I didn't mind it that much yet.

Naturally, I grabbed my phone and started checking for messages.

I had a couple... to my surprise. And they're all from FX members asking if the show [Spring Awakening] is going through since the weather's all crazy. Being the president, blah blah blah, I texted everybody it was cancelled.

Anyhow. I went back to half-asleep mode.

I was finally up and running when my dad told me we're moving to my cousins' house at Ayala. Apparently, the water in the house was thigh-high (that sounds weird).

You see, the house isn't on the same level as the street. From the garage, you have to take a flight of stairs down to the compound's frontyard. My house is at the end, it's a few steps higher than the other houses since we wanted it to be flood-free last time we had it renovated.

So yeah. I packed all my stuff in a plastic container (of course, i'm that maarte), and we headed to the car. I passed through the friggin' cold floodwater which was thigh-high inside the house and waist-high in the front yard. Not exactly my favorite thing to do. I was rejoicing when we were finally in the garage.

We decided to go to Greenhills. Got some McDonald's. Went back to the garage, and I went to sleep.

The situation:

1. My eldest cousin is with his family in Ayala. Thing is, to get there, you have to pass through Katipunan, which was already flooded.

2. My other cousin is in Assumption Makati. She just took her college entrance test there. Since the storm came, the school actually let students sleep in. They even have Jollibee.

3. My tita is stuck in her house in Kamuning. She's on the second floor already. The flood has already drowned her car.

4. My lola and other tita live in Pasig, right beside Ever Gotesco. The flood was just rising at that time.

We were in Santolan, and we didn't know where to go, so we decided to fetch my cousin in Assumption since we can't really go anywhere with flood. The car can't handle it.

After some traffic in Edsa, we finally arrived at Assumption.

Though she kept texting she's fine in the school, she seemed happier when we finally picked her up. She was saying she belongs there. (She passed the test. Duh!) And all the teachers were very nice. They were offering people rooms and food and stuff.

So we decided to go to Glorietta since there wasn't anywhere else to go.

However, everything was closed so we practically did nothing.

Here's the thing.

My tita and my lola live in Pasig, right beside Ever Gotesco.

As the story goes, everybody was pre-occupied watching TV. Suddenly, the maid's son goes out into the garage and sees the flood outside. (The garage is prolly half a meter higher than the street.)

"'Ma, gusto ko maglaro sa labas. May tubig oh!"

And then they start to notice the flood. Crazy, isn't it?

Well, the water started to rise and rise. They live in a bungalow so there isn't really any second floor to climb.

It's a good thing though the neighbor had a two-story house. So they bought my grandmother to that house in a wheelchair. The water was already chin-high. They stayed there together with an old neighbor, a couple of other house helpers and some neighborhood carpenters.

On the other side of town though, we were pretty much worried about them.

My mom was calling people to no answer. No signal from the people in Pasig. My eldest cousin with the flood-ready cars isn't answering.

Just when he does answer, the flood's already too high to drive in. Great.

Anyhow. We were in Glorietta at that time.

We decided to head over to my cousin in Ayala to figure out a way to get my lola. We got a text later on that there wasn't any dinner there so we decided to go to Market! Market!.

All the while, we were trying to contact the people in Pasig. Only the caregiver and my tita had cellphones. And Market! Market! didn't have good signal.

Just as we sat down inside the restaurant, my cousin (the one who was with us) suddenly receives a text from her mom (my tita in Pasig) that goes something like:

"Malapit na lampas bubong ang tubig. Help."

And we were frantic. My mom and my cousin were in tears.

We didn't eat dinner anymore. We just picked up my other tita in Kamuning (the flood had subsided by then) and started making more calls to other people.

We were trying to find a way to get our lola out of there.

So we tried all possible contacts. We even called our tita who was taking a vacation in the states. Anyhow, we managed to call some people, and we were somehow at ease.

We settled down in Shakey's in Tomas Morato and tried to get something to eat.

We tried to calm things down. Apparently, the bubong being referred to was my grandmother's bungalow and not the house they were in, which was a relief.

Well. A lot more stuff happened. Quite confusing to explain.

But we found ourselves on Ortigas Extension. That's my mom, my dad, my two cousins, my tita, some guards and I.

I was able to walk as far as we were allowed.

And whoa. It was pitch black darkness up ahead. I dunno if I could ever survive being there.

One problem we had was signal.

Where we were, there wasn't any signal for Globe, which is what most of us were using.

But something, I guess, miraculous happened. The whole time, my cousin--whose mom was there in the house--had signal.

Another thing we were worrying about was food.

They were in an abandoned house, so of course there wasn't any food in there. And in there rush, they weren't able to bring any food with them. They hadn't eaten since lunchtime, and for someone as old as my grandmother, that's something we were really worrying about. (She's already eighty years old.)

At around 1am, the rescuers finally found my grandmother.

My cousin and my mom brought her to the hospital while we stayed there and waited for my tita. Well, we thought they'd come back for her right away, but darkness was an issue. And of course, there are other people to save. In the car, she was really chewing the food we brought. Obviously, really hungry. But I guess she was really relieved as well judging from the look on her face.

I fell asleep in the car at around 3am.

I woke up in Eastwood at around 6am. Apparently, they were trying to clear traffic, so my dad went on to find somewhere with signal while my cousin got closer. Still no news from my tita.

Long story made short, they were finally rescued around 2 in the afternoon later that day.

Honestly, it was a very harrowing experience for my family and me, especially for my cousin. Her mother was up there, and she's really close with my grandmother.

I'm just really thankful we're over with it.

On the way home, we had in the car one of the maids and her kid (the one who first saw the flood). She was talking about the experience, and she mentioned something that I thought was really... I dunno, what's the word?

She said they were still very lucky. Other people had it in worse than them.

And it's true. They were still relatively safe, and that's something else to be thankful for.

Well, there's another storm coming. Let's prepare well for that.

Hopefully, we're all still safe.

On a side note.

Hey there, fans of MMDA TV! Did you see me? I was right beside Bayani Fernando as he was trying to... I dunno what exactly... probably trying to look good for the elections. :D

Yeah! I was right beside him!