yolanda

     

     time stands still in tacloban, and elsewhere where the unforgiving fury of "yolanda" was unleashed.  O, what a regal name - yolanda - for such a cold-hearted warrior who dashed both children and elderly alike to the ground with no remorse!  i witness the aftermath, the devastation.  i witness the howling tempest of "yolanda" only through the news channels and facebook, only days after the cataclysm.  i wasn't there myself.

     i grew up in a flood prone area in manila: as a kid, i played in the flooded street of maria clara in sampaloc along with my friends.  i recall my friends and i taking a detached roof of a jeepney and turning it upside-down into a boat, we frolicked through the floods.  typhoons, super typhoons and floods were part of my normal life.  they come, they go: i lived with that, i took that for granted.

     rumbles, brawls and word arguments escalating into fisticuffs were also commonplace in the streets where i grew up.  they were also part of my normal life, growing up in that area; though i was never a part of any of the violence, i was an "uzi" to all the rough and tumble: my blood rushes through my veins in excitement when i watch trouble brewing.  i smile at the storm.

     with this frame of mind, had i been in any of the sorry places where "yolanda" wielded her contemptuous sword, i might have become a casualty: dead.  i would probably have been curious as to what a storm surge was and waited until the last moment on the shore when i saw the water bulge and swell before i ran to higher ground - if i had earlier thought of that escape plan - like the man i saw on the video who got chased by the storm surge and ran as fast as he could and jumped to the trunk of a nearby tree.  i don't know if he escaped the mini-tsunami: the video was cut after he leaped to the tree trunk.

     probably like many others, i would have told my wife and kids that our house was strong enough to withstand a typhoon, or for that matter, a super-typhoon: we've been through hundreds of that.  i would have awakened jaded and distraught, or would not have awakened at all: dead.

     the worst that have hit us of recent years was the "habagat" - in fact, both "habagat" of august 2012 and 2103.  but the worst part of it was that the flood waters have gone into our house and inundated the back rooms and both bedrooms... ankle-deep!  would we have been hit by a super typhoon of "yolanda's" ferocity, (i have no doubt) our roof would fly off our house in a huff and every item inside our house fly off with a puff, and we would end up all wet, bruised and wounded, fearful and tearful, jaded and distraught: or dead. 

     where would the poor fisherfolk that lived near the shorelines have gone to evacuate?  the fish ball vendor?  i suppose nowhere safe from the cruel screaming rage of "yolanda". 

     the next time a typhoon of "yolanda's" proportions develops over the pacific and is heading towards where i live, i will not smile at the storm.  

     i have learned my humble lesson: prepare or prepare to die.