COPING WITH FLOOD WATER WOES AND LEARNING HOW TO LIVE WITH IT

Our home is located in one of the areas in the Philippines devastated by a massive flood caused by typhoon Ondoy.  We were residents of the place for almost seven years before the flood’s occurrence.  That was our first exposure on this type of calamity.  According to testimonies of old residents and those who have lived here since birth, no flood of such magnitude had ever devastated the place.  Fact is, place was considered a “flood free zone” until the Ondoy incident.

That experience left a mark in the minds of the residents in the area.  Others cannot get over the terror it brought to the populace that every time there is heavy rainfall particularly at night everyone is on alert.  Some may say that I was lucky for I was in the province at the time of the unforeseen disaster but truth was, psychologically I was more scared stiff watching the events on television.  I was so apprehensive of my youngest son who was the only one left at home at the time. My eldest son left early morning for work and the 2^nd one, a daughter was out of town attending a friend’s wedding.  Luckily both were on safe grounds.  Flood at our place started at about past eight in the morning.  Our last contact with my son was before noon and he told us that water was almost shoulder deep outside the house and is rising very rapidly.  Water seems to be rushing in from all directions according to him.  An hour after noontime, my two children and I who were only communicating through cell phones totally lost contact with him. I was already in a panicky situation as there is no one to ask assistance.  Everyone I know who live near our home could not be reach by any means of communication.  The events shown on television only scared me more.

It was already 12noon of the following day when my eldest son was able to reach our place taking odd means of transportations and walking along muddy streets as regular transport services were mostly not available.  I was truly relieved when he called and told me that his brother is safe.  Although it was very depressing that the whole house was in total disarray and everything inside were either partially or totally damaged but we were still very grateful that my son is safe and suffered no injury.  The next challenge was cleaning.  It focused on disposing and removing evidences of all debris the flood had brought.  It took almost two weeks to partially restore the place to a “comfortable/ liveable condition” again.  Everything from clothes to house hold utensils, furniture and appliances had been damaged and it’s like starting from scratch again.  That was a very harrowing experience for the whole family and also to every resident of the place.

Now, barely a month before the 3^rd year commemoration of Ondoy flood, we are again experiencing heavy rains for the past days.  This time there is no typhoon but rains are brought in by Southwest  Monsoon  referred to locally as “Hanging Habagat” which is normally an aftermath of a typhoon.   This continuous moderate to heavy rains set off overflowing of the creek near the subdivision where we live.  For the past three days this water overflow had encroached into the streets resulting to a two to three feet flood and managed to creep into some homes.  Out of fear, we padlocked our place on the 2^nd day of street flooding and decided to stay (until the rain pour stopped completely) in my eldest son’s (now married) place which is completely flood free.  Through phone communications with a neighbour we expect that though flood level is far below that of Ondoy, still we have a lot of cleaning and maybe some repairs to immediately attend to once we get back.

To sum up, I think we are all duty bound to pay back whatever damage we had been doing to mother earth.  This is the only place (now known to man) in the whole universe that God has provided the natural necessities for life (especially human being) to exist.  It is then our duty not only to protect but to nurture everything mother nature supplies us.  It is not too late yet to give back what it has given us.