Day 1: The Arrival of Typhoon Odette
7:00 A.M. It was a gloomy but a calm morning. Some of the families are preparing for the arrival of the typhoon. My father tied the roofs, my sister charged the gadgets, my mom bought some groceries, and I free the animals. I personally haven’t experience a signal number 4 typhoon. Well I do know that it’s a pretty strong disaster but what I didn’t know is it it’s going to cause a pretty traumatic experience for most of the people from Visayas and Mindanao.
7:00 P.M. The wind starts to blow. It was not just a breeze anymore. People starts to get panic. My cousin Kim convinced us to get a hotel room but it is already too late. It is hard to go out during that time. The wind is too strong and we are afraid that some branches might hit on us.
We are a family with serious anxiety issues and believe me when I say that most of our elderlies are having their panic attacks and are taking all of their medicines and mind you the typhoon didn’t arrive yet.
8:00 P.M. We were inside our house and we are scared and nervous of Typhoon Odette’s every single blow. I am not exaggerating everything but it is indeed a very strong storm.
A big blow of wind came and a very massive branch from a tree that is thirty meters away landed to our house which literally shook it. We were about to go out and go to my cousin Leslie’s house which is safer but my father was still upstairs and we were scared that the huge branch had hit him or something only to find out that he was stopping the wall that might actually collapse and fall. The wind continuously blew so we ran to my Leslie’s house immediately and all of my other cousins, aunts, and uncles were already there. We stayed there only for an hour but we still felt unsafe because the water from the creek quickly escalated which was a familiar situation that happened to the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda wherein there were a lot of casualties due to the storm surge. So we decided to go to the barangay hall across our compound, one of my cousins successfully made it there but the rest of us went back because we’re too scared to cross the street since our place has a lot of trees and some branches and roofs might accidentally hit us. Instead of going back to Leslie’s house we went to my other cousin John’s house which is just directly on the upper part of Leslie’s. While we stayed there, we prayed the Holy Rosary.
9:00 P.M. One of my cousins whom successfully went to the barangay hall contacted us and suggested that we should still go to there since it was calm and safer there. So all of us decided to go but some including my boy cousins, my uncles, and my father chose to stay to keep track of the house.
We were on our way out, the elders are starting to get tired. My mom was extremely devastated after witnessing a glimpse of our roofless house but we are still trying to cheer her up and tells her that it is okay as long as everyone is okay.
We are on our way to the Barangay Hall carrying our heavy belongings the water is still high which already levels our knees we protected our heads with random materials that we see just to make sure that we would land safe to our destination. My two aunties and three cousins made it there, though one of small cousin almost flown by a strong wind but thank God he’s ok. I, my mom, my sister, and two other cousins were stranded in our neighbor’s house. We were not able to follow since the typhoon went stronger when it was our turn to go. We stayed in our neighbor’s house for 30 minutes until the wind slightly calmed since the eye of the typhoon was already in Cebu at that time. We then went to the Barangay Hall. We did not go back because we knew that after experiencing the calmness of the eye of the storm there is another set of strong wind again.
We formed a line when we went there. I was on the front. I ran as fast but then when I looked back they were not there. So I went back only to find out my mom got slip due to the roof that was on the street so I went there to help and we finally got to the Barangay Hall altogether.
10:00 P.M. We finally arrived. We’re all wet and tired. Many people were already there and we are lucky enough to find our place in there. We stayed there until 3:00 A.M. To make sure that there is no strong wind anymore.
That was one of the longest night of my life. Every blow of every minute, I get so scared not just for me but for my family. Everything that happens during that night was a nightmare. We were lucky that all of us including my family and neighbors were okay. The mistake that we made during that time is we trusted our house too much since it was already built for 25 years now not knowing that the typhoon is stronger. We should’ve went to the evacuation hall earlier than the time that we decided to go. We should have kept all of our stuff in a container or plastic so it would not be blown by the strong winds. We thought we were prepared but still there is a lesson to every bad situation. The important thing is that there is no casualties in our family including my neighbors. We were all fine and are currently still fighting. There is no drinking water from the groceries anymore, there is no electricity, we’re lucky enough to have water source (though there are times were no water would come out from the faucet), and there are very long queues to every ATM machines, ticketing offices, and grocery stores. This situation is very hard for most of us most especially right now that Christmas is almost coming but we will fight. It is a nature of the Filipinos to still smile after every storm that comes because we know that there is an end to this suffering.
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