SENDONG

Coming home to Cagayan de Oro City, for a highschool reunion, the morning after the storm ” Sendong “, most definitely, wasn’t what my heart and eyes expected to see.

My highschool reunion was scheduled on the morning of December 17, 2011.

Around two am, about the same time I was snuggled cozily , underneath my soft sheets, many of the people, from the city where I grew up, were either taking their last breaths or were already underneath pile of storm debris.

At quarter to three in the morning, I was on my way to the airport,
without any knowledge as to what might await me there, except for well, my 20th year highschool reunion.

However, minutes later, my husband got a call from my sister Mirzi, who resides in another area, within our city.

She was the one who told us, that our house was flooded and there was no electricity and no water, but thank goodness, everyone in my family was alright.

Earlier, my sister was informed by her mother-in-law, all the way from New York City, about the high waters in Consolacion, our place.

She chanced upon a facebook status of our neighbor, Christine Pagapulaan Yasay.
She posted that flood waters enveloped the ground floor of her house.
We have her, to thank for.
It is because, for us , who reside in a place near the river, but had never experienced flood waters getting inside our house, it somehow alerted my sister, to call my mom.

Later on, while speaking to my mom and my sister Pelucci, over the phone, I could hear noises on the background, that sounded like drum rolls.

It turned out to be sounds coming from logs, trucks, equipments and what-have-yous , being carried by flood waters.

The greatest fear my mom experienced , as she would recall, was during those minutes when the flood waters rose so quickly.

It was not even because the waters submerged my dad’s car and the whole ground floor of our house.

Not even about my Dad being stranded in Camiguin Island.

It was that feeling of fear that seemed like an eternity.

She was silently, praying and breathing, while waiting to exhale, till the rising waters finally stopped.

Moreover, the most painful sight for my mom, should be on that morning after, just when dawn started breaking.

As she looked outside our window, it was not the mountain of storm debris in front of our house, neither my dad’s missing car, nor the impossibility of being able to clean up the sludge, that wrenched her soul.

It was the sight of hungry and muddied people, with bumps, bruises, fresh wounds and broken hearts.

They were not even our neighbors.

The people my mom saw, were survivors from areas more devastated than ours.

They were from areas like Balulang, Carmen and Macasandig which were kilometers away.

They figuratively walked their hearts out, along Burgos Street all the way to Consolacion.

They were in the streets of Consolacion hoping to find BODIES of their drowned loved ones, who were carried by the rampaging river, the night before.

They were husbands, wives, mothers, fathers and children looking for their missing family members.

One person even told our househelp the she walked all the way from Balulang to Consolacion hoping that she will find her loved ones, somewhere in our area.

She lost everything and everyone else.

My mom could only shed tears.

My youngest brother Geo, mire and all, walked all the way from Consolacion to Burgos Street up to City Hall and tried to see the scope of the damage that ” Sendong ” left.

Whatever he saw after that, it made him clean up our ground floor without any complaint nor any sign of exhaustion.

My plane touched down at around 8am, ” the morning after. “

And everything else I saw in my beloved city that morning, touched my life in so many ways.

Our neighborhood:

I was close to tears , with my classmates in highschool, while listening to our other classmate, Rosario, a survivor of Sendong, as she related her horrible experience:

May the people from my city recover from their losses.