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| Aerial shot of provinces and cities from the South underwater. Source: Yahoo News |
Last August,
Bagyong Maring’s relentless downpours, which was intensified by Habagat (monsoon), left the
entire Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces – including Bulacan,
Pampanga, Cavite, and Laguna – submerged in waist up to 10-feet-deep floods.
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| Vice President, Jojo Binay and his son, Makati Mayor, Jun-Jun Binay, riding in an amphibian truck to check out the entire city. This photo was taken along Mayapis in front of Cityland. Source: Facebook |
Sunday night, after spending the weekend in Bulacan, I
went back to my apartment only to see Gil Puyat
Avenue underwater, although this is a typical scenario for Mayapis and Filmore after three to four hours of rain.
My ultimate baha experience: lumusong sa hanggang tuhod na baha with a week’s worth of freshly washed clothes and a laptop. Thank God, for my boyfie and for pedicabs. :)
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| I’m kind of relieved I don’t own a car right now. Not sure if this car will still run. :( |
Monday, Day One: In my mind, I thought the flood was going to
subside in the morning and everything will be fine. But then I woke up to a
text message from our HR saying that our office will be closed and that we can work from
home. Could it be that bad? I went out and this is what I saw: knee-high flood everywhere!
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| Photo outside our building taken by my cousin at 3:30 in the morning |
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| Ankle-deep flood by 4:00 in the afternoon the same day. |
We didn't have any food in our apartment. L But luckily, we were able to get food and other supplies when the water subsided later that afternoon.
Tuesday, Day Two: The water was all gone Monday night. So,
again, I thought we could all go to work the next day. Morning came and this
happened: whoa! Mas tumaas ang baha (the water got higher)! Work’s suspended
for real this time.
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| The view from above: we can only see the topmost half of these cars. |
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| It's that bad that even our garage at the ground floor level, which was already elevated, got flooded. |
Thank God, our unit’s
way up level three or it would have been a different story.
But in all fairness, this is nothing compared to other people’s
Maring experience. I was only trapped at home with limited food supply (pero may Wi-Fi pa rin), but other people lost their homes, livelihood, and even
family members. :(
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| Some men from our neighborhood out to buy food ... or perhaps just taking a dip. Haha. |
Yes, it does flood in Makati, but hey, where doesn't it flood these days? Times have changed. Even climate has changed. Ondoy, Maring, and other typhoons getting more catastrophic each year and now the devastating
Habagat effect, who knows what's next? We'll never know.
The best thing to do is to be prepared all at all times. How? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Always go for apartment units in the topmost floors.
- Store non-perishable and no-cook food items such as canned goods, crackers, instant noodles for emergencies.
- Take a shower or, at least, wash your feet and legs immediately after “the ultimate baha experience” to avoid risks of leptospirosis.
- Always keep in touch with your family, especially if you don’t live with them or trapped somewhere else when this happens , to keep them from worrying.
