Being more mindful of what we throw away

[Repost from my Facebook ‘notes’]

It’s been two days from the worst flood that I have ever seen in my life. And this time, I became a victim too. My husband and I are part of the government statistics: number of affected people of Typhoon Ondoy- 450,000.

It was all so sudden. The building manager and staff were banging on our glass doors, waking us up from our deep slumber. It was probably past 9:00 am, Saturday. We were trying to sleep some more because hubby celebrated his birthday the night before (I surprised him with a get-together with very few friends).

“Get all the things you can! The waters are rising…” They screamed at us.

Hubby and I didn’t really panic. We took a look outside and the water is still low, it hasn’t reached our front door yet…

We even had time to change into more decent looking clothes. Without any panic, we started putting things on higher places – table tops, on the bed, the higher cabinets…

Then the manager and staff started asking us, “Do you want us to carry your refrigerator up already? What about your TV…? There were already commotion outside…Hubby and I were still a bit unperturbed. We agreed anyway but we really didn’t think the water will reach that high. In fact, we thought out bed will be high enough…

And then suddenly, very suddenly, we just saw that the water is now knee-high…then perhaps just barely five minutes…it was already touching the drawers of my study table…just inches away from my laptop!

That’s probably the time we started to panic and see that the waters are indeed fast rising…and then when we were able to grab my laptop, printer and modem, we just realized it is real. This is happening. We can’t save anything much. When I ran out of our unit, the waters were already at my chest

I cannot even go back anymore because when I tried to, the waters were too strong for my small frame. I can’t swim. I didn’t think I’d want to give additional worry to all the people trying to save their possessions…so I just stayed by the staircase of the main building so the people who are helping us retrieve some of our things can pass on some stuffs to me and they can go back to our house.

It finally dawned that we can’t save much anymore. So the books and the documents had to go. The clothes too. Some others.

And then we were there huddled in the main lobby of the building which is on a mezzanine level. We can only wait for the waters to subside. Count our blessings, console each other that at least we are still alive. We hoped the rains will stop soon. We heard news about Marikina and can only send SMS to try to help contact AFP. We were worried about the others.

I couldn’t say thank you enough for the people who helped us. Our friends Jay, Ned, and their son Naki, who went to us the next day to bring us food and fresh set of clothes. The neighbors and staff who bravely waded through the murky waters to help us save some of our possessions…they are the angels that we most needed.

Now, it’s been two days and I still think about how this flood could happen.

I posted this comment in FB – Yes, the government should have an effective and working disaster response. However, we also are partly to be blamed because of how we abuse our environment. We throw dumps and garbages as if we own the world and that the world is unlimited. I felt the brunt. My house got submerged up to my chest level. I lost many things. I only hope our people will be more careful, to be more caring, to be more sensitive to the environment.

It will always be us who will suffer in the end. Please, let us be more conscious of what we throw away, they can eventually kill us. The stuffs we throw away will be the same ones that will clog our rivers and drainage systems.

Please do not let this kind of flood happen again.

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