Ondoy aftermath: September 27, 2009

NOTE: This was a post I made in my old blog the day after Ondoy hit. I was in Calumpit, supposedly to celebrate Tatay's birthday. We were supposed to leave in the afternoon, but when we learned that NLEX pulled off a Gandalf (YOU SHALL NOT PASS!), we had no choice but to spend the night there - without change of clothing or extra toiletries.  Just now, PAGASA announced that the accumulated rainfall is 472mm in 22 hours, greater than Ondoy's 455 mm in 24 hours. 

[ETA] I'm home. Aside from Twitter, Wikipedia has the the storm on the main page. I see CNN also has it. Facebook is full of it. It's one of the worst we've had - a month's worth of rainfall came down on us in 6 hours. Not as epic as the one in Turkey, but for a country that's so used to storms hitting us month after month, this storm was something. Below is something I wrote earlier today, half-expecting that I won't be home early today, but I got home while the sun was still shining. Whew. Thank God.

Writing this down on my notebook, to be posted online once I touchdown in Manila. With "Off The Wall" playing on The Green Menace, I write this. Mark is sleeping beside me - it is 9:20 AM. He and the other guy cousins stayed up all night - mosquitoes, among other factors contributed to this.

There is no electricity. Murasaki-chan's (note: Sony Ericsson P1i) running dangerously low on battery, which is partly my fault because I've been updating like crazy on our situation there. I decided to use Barahime (note: office phone) as my primary phone late last night, so I can let various people know that I'm fine.

Even if Bulacan was hit with Signal #2, our house in Calumpit is on high ground, so it would take one heck of a rainfall for it to reach the house. Aside from this, when we woke up this morning, we saw how much the damage was from last night. A banana tree fell. Pampanga River - which is literally steps away from our backyard - overflew, the water lilies now beckoning at our gates.

At front, the flood was thigh deep when we woke up at 6 AM. Three hours on, it's just a little over the knee. The elevation leading towards our house is completely submerged till the second gate. Outside - beyond the first gate, people are fishing. We got some fish from them, probably for pangat for lunch later. Papa is fishing for pangasius - the idea of fishing in our own (overflowing) fishpond amuses me.

Back home, our house didn't get flooded (thank God) but it's pretty much a waterworld outside - which is expected for Manila. Listening to the radio I hear that NLEX is starting to become passable. If we spent the night in the expressway, it would have been a nightmare.

I'm wearing my lola's duster. It completes the whole farm look, I think, which adds to the amusement of the current situation. I imagine that this would have been harder if not a lot of us were here. Cousins, titas and titos who have the same wacky wavelength - all of us together somehow managed to take a disaster like this in stride.

We estimate that we'll be able to go home by late noon earliest, dinnertime latest. By that time, I hope all roads are moderately passable, and we can manage to sleep on soft beds and pillows tonight! Plus, I have a ton of pictures to post to show my own take of yesterday's storm, which will surely amuse family members that were lucky/unlucky enough not to be here.

What an interesting weekend.