Having lived my entire life in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, typhoons and flood are occurrences that we live with on a regular basis. Personally, strong typhoons simply meant no classes, and flooding on the streets meant greater challenges in getting from one place to another. Not really a big deal.
However, all these changed in September of 2009 when Typhoon Ketsana, known in the locally as Tropical Storm Ondoy hit the country.
I was a mother of a 10-yo old girl and a 7-yo boy at that time, and we were living beside the peaceful San Mateo River. The day started like any other rainy day. My husband and I strolled around our subdivision noting that some drainages were heavily clogged and as such flooding was already seen in certain streets. We commented that we were lucky that our area was cleaner than most and will not have this problem.
Later in the morning, the rain still has not let up and water was rising on our street but this did not cause much anxiety since we were used to this. My source of consolation was that I had enough supplies for the next meals even if we could not get out of the house. However, when it was nearing noon, the flood water still kept rising so we decided to move our cars to a higher place. When still the rain continued and the flood water entered the house, we started bringing up food from the pantry to the second story of our residence as a precautionary measure. We had wanted to get extra jugs of water but the flood current was already too strong and it was not safe to go outside. All this time, I was still feeling thankful that we had a safe and dry refuge on the second floor with a bathroom and some bread and biscuits to last us a day.
My sense of security was shattered when, from outside our second floor window, I saw the river breach the perimeter wall and the water surged into the houses on our street. We saw the water steadily rising on the staircase, but we still thought, “Oh it surely wouldn’t reach the next step…”
At this time, electricity has already been cut to avoid electrocution mishaps and we were saving our mobile phone batteries for the most important calls. Calls for assistance were met with a lot of willingness to help but incapacity to do so as our street now looked like a fast flowing river. We have been isolated.
At around 1PM, whatever complacency I had was crushed when the water reached the second floor. The safe haven I thought we had was gone and climbing to the roof/deck now became a concrete plan. At this time, the preparation was for how to stay dry and warm without a roof. We bundled up everyone in jackets and raincoats and got ready to climb a makeshift ladder to the deck. When the water passed our knee on the second floor, we decided to go up since we were not sure how fast and strong the water would come. By 3PM, we were praying all decades of the rosary continuously while shivering under an improvised tent. My husband strung up empty 6-gallon water bottles and taught everyone how to use this as a buoy just in case we would be swept by the current from where we were. We could see and hear other families shouting for help as they were carried downstream.
During this time, I was now thinking, “So is this how we will die? Is today the day?” My greatest concern was for my children who’d have a traumatic and painful end. As these morbid thoughts were running in my mind, my only source of consolation were the text messages from friends who knew of my situation and were praying for me, but I could not even reply to these as my phone was about to run out of charge.
Hope came at around 5PM when we noticed that the water stopped rising. But our new challenge was the dark.
At around 8PM, we heard the sound of motorboats and started banging pots and pans to call for help. We were finally rescued by the army and we spent the night in a friend’s house who opened their door and their hearts to the raggedy and wet bunch that was us.
We were only able to return back to the house after more than a month of cleaning and repair. Thick mud and silt welcomed us from all parts of the house. Furniture and appliances all needed to be changed. We survived with the generous help of colleagues, friends and relatives.
That massive flooding previously unheard of in Metro Manila exposed the country’s many problems that led to such disaster—from the poor weather-forecasting system, lack of capacity of the country’s weather bureau, the degradation of the environment, and, most of all, the poor disaster risk-reduction and management plans, or the lack of it. Personally, the experience made me appreciate and recognize what are the most important things in life.
Fast forward to November 2020 when Typhoon Ulysses (International Name: Vamco) hit the Philippines and we found ourselves in almost the same situation. While the rains were not as heavy as the previous Typhoon Ondoy, it came in the wake of two other typhoons, which meant that the mountain ranges were already saturated and so the rain water directly flowed into the rivers and into the reservoir, which were already full, instead of being slowly absorbed by the soil.
On the eve of November 11, we anxiously monitored the river water level as we expected the typhoon to pass over the city. The water level was high but not alarmingly so. However, I woke up at around 2AM to the sound of our neighbor evacuating. Upon rechecking the river, the level was already a lot higher than hours before so we decided to evacuate. Getting out of the subdivision was by then already tricky since we had to drive around fallen branches and uprooted trees, but we got to our destination safely.
We found out the following day that the river once again breached the perimeter wall of the subdivision a few hours after we left, and that by 10AM, the water had once again risen to the ceiling of the first floor. While we were relieved that we were safe, dry and comfortable, we could not help but dread the enormous cleaning operation that we knew was coming and the significant amount of losses that we suffered.
What I thought could happen only once in my lifetime happened again within less than a decade. According to a climate and disaster resilience consultant, what is needed is an investment in nature-based solutions, e.g., to start preventing any further attempts of deforestation and to strengthen efforts to protect our watersheds. For as long as these are not done, the next calamity may come sooner than later.
The sound of rain, which used to soothe and calm, now bring with it a sense of dread. When we do not respect Mother Earth, we suffer the consequences.
