These past two weeks are unusual… Storm after storm, rain after rain, the top part of the country gets drenched so bad that even the mountains and dams can’t handle the water and start flowing to the metro again.
They said this is a repeat of Ondoy, but GMA News’ Meteorologist Nathaniel Cruz gave a better explanation about this: Ondoy went in slow, while Ulysses succeeded other storms.
Still, I can’t fail but notice that the trauma Ondoy brought was back. It’s almost 10 years since we faced the aftermath of the storm, floods here and there, people dying, et cetera.
Unlike in the past where I am beside my mom, I’m finishing my event work away from home – it made me worried so much when I learned from my elder cousin that the floods in the area went above the thigh level. Even my older brother was worried too.
To add to that, Cagayan Valley and Isabela are also heavily affected.
I can’t avoid thinking of the dams which opened their gates as they avoid a spillover. I kept thinking, maybe aside from the outpouring of water, there is a human error behind this. Or maybe mismanagement. Or maybe, the scenes were just too quick to react to. I don’t know, I’d like to put the blame on one person or another. This, aside from the activities that make the mountains surrounding it bald.
Just yesterday, I went to my mom’s place and check her situation. She seems okay – the floods didn’t reach knee-deep (thank God), and she was aware of her surroundings enough to muscle the items to a safe level.
Prior to this, we were already preparing for the next working day at my other desk when lights went out at around 10:30pm. The next day, we were packing up to get back to the main desk to proceed. Here’s what I saw: Calf-deep floods going out, a traffic sign fell down, so on. Upon coming back, I had to dry some books whenever I can.
Capping off, I always have an inkling of rearranging my desk from time to time, so now I’m using my third iteration, which makes great use of the blue screen chroma key instead of the green one. At least I’ll have to avoid wearing blue for most of the time.
I’ll end my desk diary here, but moving forward, let’s give what we can give to the Philippine Red Cross.