I survived Ondoy! Top Ten Things I learned from Ondoy

Talk about a life experience. If at the end of my days, my children and children's children would ask me what I recall from my life, I would probably include TS Ondoy and how we lived through it as one of my most memorable experiences. Life experiences change you or you bring something with you at the end of it... Ondoy was a mix of both and more.

so without further adue... here's what I learned from Ondoy... my own Top Ten list of things I learned while flooded in my home.

1. First, it never hurts to be prepared.

No one expected the water to rise to high so fast... it's a good thing I've always been Mr Boyscout. I had the necessary tools, goods and knowledge to prepare myself and my family for the flood.

For example, we always keep our water at least half full before we start to order more drinking water... and we keep our rice bin always half full as well whenever we can. I knew to turn the circuit breaker off the second the water started hitting our floors, so as to avoid any dangers of electrocution... and I always keep batteries handy (although I always forget where they are) for our mini lamp/flashlight.

Buti na lang talga marami pa kaming drinking water and we had a good stock of canned goods in the house from the previous grocery run.

In short, we had enough for a few days. Kung kaya nyo, always keep stock of your stuff na pwede pang ilang araw... kasi palaging delikado pag running low on something important or basic like water, food, rice.

2. Magaling pala ako mag-swimming

Yes. Lumangoy ako sa baha. Baket? Kasi naubusan kami ng yosi. Which bring me to point 3...

3. I will not survive a calamity without cigarettes.

Nilangoy ko yung baha nung Sabado nang hapon para maghanap ng mga kandila at tinapay at yosi. Pero priority talaga ng biyahe ko, yosi.

But because the flood had unusually strong currents, I had a hard time reaching past the sari sari store near our house. Good thing it was elevated and it had stock.

Pero nauwi ako sa Champion cigarettes at Fortune reds. You should have seen the look on my face when the tindera said wala na silang yosi...

4. Malakas pala ang current ng baha.

This is dangerous. In all honesty what I did that day was foolhardy, and yes I will get it from my Mom and my sisters. But hey, I had full confidence in my swimming ability and I was familiar with my surroundings... kahit mataas baha I know which areas had walls safe for grabbing on to etc.

What I didn't account for was how strong the current would be. The water was flowing towards the lower part of Cainta... which was the subdivision next door, Vista Verde. There was a point when I was swimming dog paddle that I WASN'T MOVING AT ALL... I was swimming against the current and it was that strong...

5. Pwede palang floating device ang...

Mineral water container or those gallong jugs na kulay blue. Pwede ka din magputol ng kahoy ng puno ng saging. Put a couple or more together and you have a raft like the one in Castaway. Pwede din bola... (WILSOOOOON). Pwede din pala lumutang ang ref...

But one thing I did learn while floating around on my big blue water gallon was that, with a long enough stick (say the handle of a mop or something similar), you can use it as an anchor and use it to push you along like the rear oar of a gondola. It works and it really helped. Just be sure you still have a firm grip on your floatation device.

6. Rainwater = good. Floodwater = bad.

Pag tubig ulan, pwde mo pa ilagay sa containers at ipangligo, hugas. Yung tubig baha, mas lalo na pag naging kulay putik / lahar na... DEINS. Mas lalo na pag may nakita kang mga lumulutang na kung anu ano... it was fine swimming through the flood on the first day. But Sunday was terrible... it was already the color of mud... and it smelled terrible. Plus all the cards that had drowned spilled oil into the water, which made it even worse.

But at the height of the flood, we were able to take a bath using the rain water we accumulated in drums and pails. Even after the flood, it rained for a short bit, we put the pails under the roof drains and got a lot of water for cleaning the house and walls.

But the floodwater... it was a bad idea for using it to clean the walls... it wouldn't get the mud off. And did I mention it smelled terrible?

7. In a calamity, the first living things to go are pets.

Plants can survive. Cool. Pets will mostly die.

My neighbor's cats, all four of them, were indoors and stuck in their low ceiling bungalow when the floods hit. Poor cats had nowhere to hide when the water rose to their roof. They died indoors. While swimming out of our house on the second day, I came across 4 floating dead dogs and one huge dead rat.

My janitor fish escaped from the aquarium too while I was removing some water from it to make it lighter to carry. He's probably still alive somewhere.

8. Electronic devices CAN STILL WORK even when drenched in water.

You just have to dry them properly before you plug them in. Neighbors' TV sets and radios were all able to work again even with all that flood water. My refrigerator still worked even if it was submerged knee high in water. And according to stuff I read online, even your cellphones can work... all you have to do to properly dry it out is to submerge the drenched cellphone into a bowl of rice overnight, and the rice will absorb all the water out.

9. Through a calamity like this, we really are all dependent on technology.

We had no communication for a day or so. The only real way was through cellular phone. Once the electricity was out, there was no internet, no phone lines, no TV... I had no idea how bad the whole thing was until Wednesday when our electricity came back and I saw how bad it was other areas.

So many people had no other way to get in touch with their loved ones. And i shudder to think what would happen if, knock on wood, we all lose communication... even radio. How in the world are we supposed to talk to everyone else? Ito ilang araw lang di mo ma-contact kaibigan at kamag-anak mo... hysteric na yung ibang tao... what more pag linggo... buwan... taon?

But then again, it was technology that allowed a lot of the relief and help to come in. I remember, the only radio we had was an FM transistor radio... and Jam 88.3 Rock Ed Radio kept broadcasting people who needed help, updates on the flood, and they were reading twitter, plurk and facebook updates on people who were looking for friends and family. It was really cool what they did for that, and how they helped the whole thing. If it weren't for technology like this, a lot of people would have probably been left stranded on their roofs and houses.

10. It's the simple things that matter.

Family. Friends. Food. Water. Clothing. Shelter. (Add cigarettes to my list.)

But seriously, we were lucky. One of our friends and her husband stayed over Friday night because they had a new born baby (1 month old) and wanted to visit us since we hadn't seen each other in a while. They live in Marikina. Today their house is gone, all that's left is a shattered rubble of wood and metal. We all shudder to think what would have happened if they didn't sleep over that night.

During the few days that we had no electricity and our first floor was flooded, we had no bathroom (bathroom is only on the first floor) and we had no cold water. We had no electricity so we could not sleep with all the mosquitos at night.

All of these things we took for granted because we were used to living well... just to lose something like the use of a toilet or an electric fan... it was quite tough.

And yes, being with close friends and family... I wouldn't have it any other way. If it truly was the end of all things, you'd rather spend the last moments with your loved ones than alone on the street. Like some people I know who were stranded that day and could not get home, or could not get in touch with their loved ones... that must have been terrible. I would not wish that on anyone, that fear and anxiety of not knowing.

Which is why at the end of the calamity, we were still happy and ok. We had what we needed... the essentials. Sure we lost some of the basic necessities but hey, even with the rising water we were having fun and joking around and basically happy.

...

Now that there's another storm coming in, I pray that it doesn't get worse than what has already happened. Looking at pictures and walking through streets seeing the aftermath of the floods, I still can't believe it's the same city.

Whatever happens this weekend, I know we're prepared. I hope everyone else is ready as well, and I hope that we've already seen the worst of it.

To my friends, thanks for all the support. You know who you are. Your words and prayers are already more than enough help.

To my Level Up family and the entire PLDT group of companies... wow! You guys did a stellar job of keeping your employees at the top of the priority list. Thank you thank you thank you. My family and I will never forget this.

To my family, thank you for all the help. Even through each other's troubles you guys still stuck it out even further to help me. Thank you from all of us... I thank God you're all safe and the floods didn't affect you as badly as it did me.

Lastly, to my baby, thanks! Thanks! Thanks! You made this life experience truly memorable.

Yihee sobrang cheesy!

See you all on the other side. Ingat!