Sleeping was no longer an option for me in the wee hours of November 8. I was frantically going through Facebook and several other sites on my tablet (I didn't own a TV set then) that gave me information about the super typhoon, as well as advice on what to do in the event of disasters. I was also coordinating with my family in Tacloban, making sure that they were physically and mentally ready for the coming deluge.
It was around 3:30 AM when I managed to call my daughter for the last time before the typhoon hit. Ingrid (my daughter) noted that Yolanda was around two hours away from landfall but they were just having rains common for a Signal No. 2 typhoon only. She also complained about her Lola (grandmom) spending too much time arranging stuff at home when she should've taken a rest before the storm made landfall.
Ingrid's report about the manageable weather made me a little less paranoid and a bit hopeful that this Yolanda won't be as catastrophic as media and weather forecasts claim it to be. For a brief moment, I became calm enough to fall asleep.
I was sooo wrong.
I was awakened by my cats at around 6 AM. The first thing I did was to check my mobile phone to see if Ingrid tried to get in touch with me while I was in deep slumber. Turns out, she did -- at around 5 AM when Yolanda was to make landfall.
A surge of panic overwhelmed my being. My daughter is not one to text me, much less, call me up, even in dire situations. However, plastered over my phone's face was the notification that she CALLED me up at 5 AM.
I tried to call Ingrid up but to no avail.
I turned to my tablet and opened the local TV app I managed to download just before the storm. It was already tuned in to ABS-CBN and the first thing I saw on my screen was reporter, Atom Araullo, reporting in full battle gear, with ferocious winds and rain hitting him from all directions.And his background was the angry bay -- the same bay I would pass by whenever I went home to Housing Seaside.
I could only cover my gaping mouth in disbelief.
Once again, I tried to get in touch with Ingrid. Still nothing. Now, I regretted the fact that I fell asleep when I should've stayed up so I could've taken my daughter's call.
My mouth went dry when the thought of our house being pummeled by those angry winds and rain came into mind.
It won't stand a chance.
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The last footage I saw before all on-the-spot reports about Yolanda blacked out was of Atom reporting from inside a building, the glass windows of which were already shattered. All the while that he was reporting, the camera was directed toward the building across which was rapidly being inundated by flood water. In a matter of around 10 minutes, the water was already lapping at the building's eaves.
Then, just like that, Atom's signal went down.
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It is a terrible feeling to be blind to what was happening to my family while Yolanda was busy wrecking havoc over the city. Did they manage to evacuate to the neighbor's two-storey house in time? Will their "evacuation center" withstand the storm's fury? What will become of the bungalow my family has lived in for several years already? Just how far is Housing Seaside from the actual seashore?
Will they survive this freakishly strong typhoon?
What would happen to me if they didn't?
I tried to erase that last thought as I went on with the rest of the day barely eating or resting.
I turned to Facebook to air my feelings that time. As it turned out, there were a number of my former students who were also online and whose nerves were just as frayed as mine. Just like me, they were living away from their respective families residing in Leyte. We went to each other for comfort and news as there really wasn't anything else we could do.
Then by around 10 PM that night, the first fresh news straight from Leyte came in via Jiggy Manicad and Love Anover of GMA News.
According to Jiggy, when communications systems in Tacloban were felled by Yolanda's wrath, his team walked for hours to Palo which is a good 15 kilometers away to report from their satellite station there and to reunite with fellow reporter and Alangalang, Leyte native, Love.
My heart felt like it was being torn to pieces as I watched the footage of the Palo Cathedral being blown to smithereens.
At the very same time that I was watching that GMA News footage, outside my place, winds from Yolanda's fringes were picking up.
Then I wondered. I was very sure that if the Palo Cathedral was a tangled mess of steel and concrete after Yolanda was done with it, what more for our run-down bungalow in Housing Seaside? If my family did survive Yolanda's onslaught, where would they be sleeping tonight?
And I finally broke down in tears.
(To be continued)
- Photo credits: Atom Araullo's photo from Google Images; GMA News footage from YouTube
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