Yolanda memories

To this day, I still cannot imagine the horror that my aunt - Mom's eldest sister - went through during the last minutes of her life. At nearly 80, she was hale and hearty, and was still taking care of her husband, a man who towered over her but was confined to a wheelchair after suffering from a stroke.

She absolutely refused to leave their home, some 300 meters from the beach, even as the winds and rain were already picking up and repeated warnings to evacuate were being broadcast everywhere.

Her daughter and grandchildren lived nearby and were ready to head out to a safer location. They were convincing the two to leave with them but my aunt was adamant. Their home had withstood countless typhoons over the years, and they always survived.

But Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) was not your typical storm that usually whipped through Tacloban City, and the rest of Eastern Visayas.

For one, it was a category 4 typhoon, which means it packed winds of up to 250 km/hour. For another, it was so strong that it triggered a storm surge - waves up to five to six meters high - that led to massive flooding.

Not tsunami

It is the unfamiliarity with storm surges that caught people flat-footed and resulted to the deaths and unrecovered remains. My cousins who experienced this first-hand lamented that most people didn't pay attention to the warnings because they didn't know what it was they were being warned about.

Had they been told it was similar to a tsunami, more would have likely understood the danger they faced and heeded the calls to evacuate and seek places of safety.

It was my nephew who was probably the last to see his lolo and lola before they were washed away by the rampaging waters. As he frantically clung to a coconut tree for dear life, he saw water rising inside their home.

Later, they would hear a witness account that my aunt and uncle were caught in swirling water, which likely swept them away, exactly where, no one knows. There were subsequent reports of their possible remains - my uncle's height in that area was not typical, which led their son to believe it may have been him.

But like thousands, whose remains were either never recovered nor identified, there was no actual bodies for us to bury. Most of the dead ended up in a mass grave. A memorial, where the names of those who perished are engraved, was erected at one of key infrastructure that served as evacuation center where 8,000 people fled to at the height of the typhoon.

Earlier at dusk today, hundreds of candles were lit on the streets of Tacloban City.

Today is 8-8. It's not an actual date (August 8) but still a day to commemorate the lives lost after the devastation left behind by Yolanda.

It is a symbol of the day of the month when the tragedy happened, and the 8th anniversary since it happened.

We lost another uncle, who mistakenly sought cover inside a comfort room which he was unable to open when the water quickly rose. When the door broke down, he was also swept away.

I can still hear the stories of my cousins and aunts about how they had to clamber to the ceiling of their house as they watched gushing water slam through the windows, the winds rip away roofs, trees uprooted and falling on top of cars as muddy waters rose quickly and swept away furniture inside the house.

They were shivering from the cold and fear, thinking how they would save themselves if waters reached the ceiling. They wanted to scream but were more anxious that any extraneous movements would cause the ceiling beams to collapse and they would fall down, injure themselves, or worse, drown.

It was before 6 AM when all this happened. They didn't sleep, hardly ate, and were running on adrenaline to survive.

Meanwhile, we who were hundreds of miles away the area of destruction, were tense watching the news and waiting for word from any of our relatives. Phones were dead, power was out and people were looking for missing loved ones, or mourning those they've lost.

It was a day after when we finally heard from one cousin, who lined up to put a call using special lines set up in the wake of the tragedy. There was still no confirmation as to the status of my aunt and uncle, and it would be weeks before my cousins finally accepted that it was futile to continue hoping they would find the two.

And it is the most painful, especially for my Mom, that they couldn't even pay proper respects and bury her sister.

And so every 8th of November, most of the folks in Tacloban have a ritual of lighting candles along the streets to remember those who perished from Yolanda's wrath and as thanksgiving for having survived and rebuilt their lives.

Lead image: KMMLlamas