Ondoy and Under (or, What a Floody Web We Weave...)

All things considered, my family was really lucky during the stormy weekend 48 hours past.

I was about to get the answer to a crucial question (How do you pronounce "Canaan?") when we lost power around 1:30PM Saturday, and it only came back around 6:30PM Sunday. (Sorry for the delay, Flixster Soulmate.) After that it was howling winds, leaky walls and a rainy afternoon.

That night (after using the remaining daylight to catch up on my reading), we were witness to Mother Nature's sense of Irony when an electical fire broke out at the neighboring shanty area 2 blocks from our house. (Oh, now the rains stop and winds pick up.) From my bedroom window I saw the fire raze westward and peppered w/ explosions (probably propane tanks or electric appliances). Looks were deceiving as the fire looked closer than it really was, prompting Aissa's paranoia to get our essential files and folders out of the steel cabinet and ready for moving. Firetrucks had trouble getting to the fire because some idiots decided to avoid the flooded streets by parking and leaving their vehicles in the middle of my street, effectively roadblocking it.

I killed time chatting w/ Eileen on the phone til' one in the morning.

Come next morning we were still w/o power (we'd only see the magnitude of the damage the day after online), and not having showered for over 24 hours I was feeling... sticky. Ma still managed to get to Makati to have her hair and makeup done, since the 'rents had a wedding to attend in the afternoon. I joined them afterward for the evening reception (yes, after bathing).

When we got to Makati Shang you'd think no-one had gone thru hell and high water (literally) to get here. Amidst RJ Ledesma's emceening (man, that guy's loud... why bother w/ the microphone) I saw a familiar face at Table 40, and my mind raced the entire evening figuring out who she was. Turns out it was Krishna from DLSU Englicom days, and to prove how small the Tsinoy world is, her dad and my mom turned out to be classmates in high school. Also ran into Ad Extremian Tracy Lim's sister Vanessa and her husband. While her voice hasn't changed, her hair grew. A lot.

*Sad Postscript: Words won't do justice to the level of sadness you can't help but feel when going through these pictures. (And speaking of sad, how is it Facebook has better photo coverage of Typhoon Ondoy than actual news media organizations?).

Imagine 2-meter high MMDA pink fences along SM Centerpoint riddled w/ torn plastic bags, giving you a clue as to how high the floodwaters were that day. Cars vertically piled in twos or threes after being washed into that position by strong currents. Beds and refrigerators ending up on high electric power lines, w/c were also being climbed on by people avoiding the currents. The lower half of 2-storey houes caked in mud. Road underpasses under water. People almost drowning trying to save their Sto. Nino statues.

Makes not having water nor electricity but at least high and dry seem frivilous, doesn't it?