We Remember: Four Years After Super Typhoon Yolanda
But who could forget? I still get chills when I think about November 8, 2013.
Four years after Yolanda and here I am, hundreds of miles away from where it happened. But somehow, memories of her still have a way of unnerving me.
If I were in Burauen right now, no doubt, my family and I would be reminiscing about so many memories, good and bad, from November 8, 2013.
We'll be talking about wondering why November 7, 2013 was declared as a non-working day, in preparation of Yolanda's arrival. Who prepares for a typhoon? Aren't we Warays kind of used to that stuff already?
We'll talk about the fried chicken that we cooked on night of the 7th, in preparation for our breakfast the following day. We also had a loaf of bread ready. Surely those would be enough to get us through the 8th. Surely we can easily buy food afterwards. We know the drill; we've encountered enough typhoons in the past.
We'll talk about huddling in our parent's bedroom at 5 am of the 8th, knowing that Yolanda has arrived, winds not too strong yet. To quote my youngest brother "Asya ini it super typhoon?", seemingly unimpressed that it's not as strong as he expected. My sister decided that she will sleep through it.
We'll talk about standing by the gate at 6 am, still enjoying the view of the dancing trees and the "freshness" of the wind.
Until it stopped being enjoyable.
The huge branches of the two mango trees in front of our house started to give way. Our roof took a hit. Something broke. Rain water was everywhere.
We all moved to the safest part of the house: the kitchen. My sister decided she that she won't sleep through Yolanda. My brothers held on to the kitchen door, it seemed that Yolanda wanted to open it too. In the intervals that our door cracked open, we got a glimpse of our main house getting brighter: we've lost half of our roofing.
Random things seemed to fly out of nowhere. Getting hit by a stone flying at 200 kms, no matter how small would have been fatal. Celestine might have been feeling the tension too. She just clung tightly too me, underneath those blankets.
We didn't count the hours. It seemed like it would never it. The walls and the ground trembled.
And then everything went still. No winds. No rain. The eye of the storm. I've always known from lessons in school that the eye of the storm is mighty calm. It is.
It gives you the chance to see the wreckage. It gives you the chance to hear your neighbor's screams and cries. It gives you the chance to see how the street and neighborhood that you've known all your life is unrecognizable at first glance.
For how long? Just a few minutes.
The booming wind could be heard coming back from the opposite direction. We didn't go back to the kitchen; we knew that this time it would be the least safe place in the house. We stayed at the front porch; we opened our gate to 30 or more people who couldn't move forward when the winds came back. Suddenly we didn't feel so alone. We waited for the storm to die down.
It was past noon when the skies cleared up. We forgot about the fried chicken that we cooked. We all had a distracted look on our face. Our adrenaline was still quiet high though. I have a good memory of seeing my sister lift a huge galvanized iron sheet that fell into our room. You wanted to do so many things and yet you didn't know where to begin.
And then you had to think about tonight and tomorrow. Because things didn't end when the storm died. There was a different situation at hand.
Oh, but here we are. Four years after we can look back on the lessons we learned.
By God's grace, we're still here.
We all moved to the safest part of the house: the kitchen. My sister decided she that she won't sleep through Yolanda. My brothers held on to the kitchen door, it seemed that Yolanda wanted to open it too. In the intervals that our door cracked open, we got a glimpse of our main house getting brighter: we've lost half of our roofing.
Random things seemed to fly out of nowhere. Getting hit by a stone flying at 200 kms, no matter how small would have been fatal. Celestine might have been feeling the tension too. She just clung tightly too me, underneath those blankets.
We didn't count the hours. It seemed like it would never it. The walls and the ground trembled.
And then everything went still. No winds. No rain. The eye of the storm. I've always known from lessons in school that the eye of the storm is mighty calm. It is.
It gives you the chance to see the wreckage. It gives you the chance to hear your neighbor's screams and cries. It gives you the chance to see how the street and neighborhood that you've known all your life is unrecognizable at first glance.
For how long? Just a few minutes.
The booming wind could be heard coming back from the opposite direction. We didn't go back to the kitchen; we knew that this time it would be the least safe place in the house. We stayed at the front porch; we opened our gate to 30 or more people who couldn't move forward when the winds came back. Suddenly we didn't feel so alone. We waited for the storm to die down.
It was past noon when the skies cleared up. We forgot about the fried chicken that we cooked. We all had a distracted look on our face. Our adrenaline was still quiet high though. I have a good memory of seeing my sister lift a huge galvanized iron sheet that fell into our room. You wanted to do so many things and yet you didn't know where to begin.
And then you had to think about tonight and tomorrow. Because things didn't end when the storm died. There was a different situation at hand.
Oh, but here we are. Four years after we can look back on the lessons we learned.
By God's grace, we're still here.
No doubt, my family, we would all be talking about these things if we are together right now.
And whenever some tough things come up, we always have a reference: "Kinaya ta ngani an Yolanda. Asay pa ini."
We love to say. And it's quiet true.
XO,
Carissa
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