Typhoon Ondoy

The word "typhoon" is Chinese for "great wind" (I'm told) and that's what I usually think of when I think of a typhoon. Our storm last Saturday was not windy. . . just an incredible amount of water. Wonder what's the Chinese term for "great water"? They said 455 mm of water fell in one day, producing the worst flooding in Manila in 40 years. (Normally we get 350 mm of rain in the whole month of September.) The news today said 75 people died and more than 300,000 are displaced. I suspect both numbers will go higher. Tons and tons of water, more than the dams could hold.

Our house is in a high place, so we did not have any problems. We did not even lose our electricity, although we lost internet service for two days. The dorms at IGSL had a few inches of water on the first floor, but nothing too serious.

Some members of our faculty team suffered more losses. We spent the whole day yesterday (Sunday) helping our dear colleagues, Eric and Michelle Agustin, clean up the mud from their house. The waters reached waist high. A huge mess, but the family is safe.

Eric and Michelle were out with their oldest son when the waters started rising. Water was everywhere and the traffic was a mess. They made it to a friend's house and stayed there, but couldn't get home. Meanwhile, their two younger sons (age 8 and 5) were still at home and water was already knee deep there. They called Cynthia, another colleague of ours, who lives nearby. She and her driver waded over to Agustin's house, and carried the two little boys (piggy-back) back to Cynthia's house. I thought the kids would be terribly traumatized by all this, but you know what their comment was? "That was the best day of our whole lives!" Little boys love this stuff!

Meanwhile, Jeff and Gerri, some of our other colleagues, missed all of this. They were at a retreat outside of Manila. They only got home last night and found that their house was flooded to the ceiling of the first floor!!! Second floor is okay. First floor includes Jeff's office - - books, computers, etc. all lost. We are mobilizing teams today to start cleaning up there, while others continue to help Eric and Michelle.

Looks like the coming days in Manila will be days of grieving, comforting, recovering, cleaning and listening to stories.