Hello everyone! How are you all? Honestly I was so busy for the past two days. There were a lot of inquiries for my little business because of the coming christmas season. The one I am telling about was my handmade felt crafts. If you want to know about it please click it here. So yeah, I need to finished it first, it’s kinda tiring, I mean my little hands was tired because I need to cut a lot of patterns and handstitched almost all of it. I am not complaining though, I am happy actually and looking for more satisfied clients in the future. Well anyway, I was thinking about what to write for today’s article, I was having a hard time of thinking what to write. Of course I am not having a writer’s block because obviously I am not a writer😅 I just love to share happenings in my life through writing😁. So today I am going to share to you my own experience during Typhoon Ondoy that happened exactly 12 years ago tomorrow.

Before we begin, let me greet these beautiful souls who never hesitated to give me their full trust and support. If you want to read more inspiring stories and articles you can just click their profile, and I promise you won’t regret it. And let me also take this opportunity to give thanks to my new sponsor @Freedom007 Blessed you more dear.

Typhoon Ondoy

On the day of September 26,2009, I woke up to a non stop raining. It was been announced by the weather forecaster that there would be a typhoon on that specific day. I don’t exactly remember what category typhoon Ondoy belongs to or how strong it was, but upon waking up, I just knew that the rain was pouring nonstop with some winds that was blowing hard outside the boarding house where I was staying. I didn’t mind though because I experienced a lot of typhoons since I was young. I prepared myself to go to work that time. I was working in SM Marikina which was just a walking distance from the boarding house. I was on closing shift so I left the house at around 12 in the afternoon. Since it was just nearby I got there earlier than my scheduled time. Because of the non stop raining, many closing shift employees went late and some reported they can’t go to work because there were no available public transportation. By this time, a lot of areas were flooded and that means a lot of vehicles cannot passed.

Since a lot of closing shift were not able to go to work, morning shift employees were requested to stay until the mall closed. While on duty we’ve heard a lot of news about the flooding happening in Metro Manila, our place was included. The mall’s location was just beside Marikina River so a lot of us wasn’t surprised by the flood ongoing since Marikina River tend to reached high level of water whenever it rained hard and then subsided on its own. What really surprised and get us worried was the continuous rain because of the typhoon and that the level of water from Marikina River reached the highest level. There was no chance that we could get out of the building because the floodwaters already reached the basement of the mall, which only means flood was all over outside. Our branch manager then decided that everyone should stay inside and that no one was going home.

Stranded

The thought of staying inside the building premises was much better than going outside where there was no available public transportation that would take you home. Also the floods were everywhere from what we heard from the news most specially those who lived in the lower area. We also heard from some of the relatives that they evacuated to a higher place, because the flood water inside their homes were rising higher and higher. But being stranded inside gave us also anxiety on what’s going to happened next. It was scary too.

The rain continued to pour, and from what we’ve heard the flood water was still rising. It was only after midnight when the rain stopped. Oh by the way all the tenants and customers that time were also stranded in the building with us. When the rain stopped, some of my colleagues and I went to the mall area to see what’s going on outside through the glass windows of the mall. We can’t believe that the flood water was really that high. The top of the highest tree near the river looks like water lilies. We got back to the office and rested for a while while praying that flood will soon subside. And God eventually heard our prayers because in the morning the water began to subside and everyone inside the building were all safe.

Aftermath

When the morning light showed up the next morning, my officemates and the rest of the employees went home. I, together with my two officemates walked home. One of them was my roommate and the other one is the owner of the house we were staying. It didn’t took us long to get home because as I have mentioned earlier the boarding house where I was staying was just walking distance from the mall I was working. The struggle was real when we reached the boarding house as there were a lot of thick muds all over the place. We can’t even open the door to get inside to see our things, we climbed up to the 3rd floor of the house using ladder. I was a little scared of heights but my adrenaline rush took over me. We managed to get inside the house and start recovering our things. Unfortunately the flood reached the second floor and some of my things were covered with mud and water. We started cleaning up all the dirty muds and flood water that went inside the house. It was really a sad day, but being safe and alive was all that mattered.

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What a major throwback we had there. It was one of the natural disaster that I will never forget in this lifetime. I am glad that even though I was stranded, there was a shelter and food for us. I remember a friend who was stranded inside the jeep and was only able to got home in the morning without any food at all. Anyway, how about you? Do you have any memorable experiences like mine? Please feel free to comment down below. I will greatly appreciate it.

Some of images used were from Unsplash