This is a story from Garret Salvacion, a nurse related to my late husband, former Ambassador Alberto Pedrosa. The Pedrosas are from Palo, a town near Tacloban that was utterly destroyed by Yolanda.
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The day before Yolanda: We had known that a super typhoon was going to hit us, and so we prepared for the worst. My parents secured the roof of our house, cut down the huge branches of the nearby trees, and prepared a bag full of clothes, flashlights, and canned goods.
Because my parents work for the San Joaquin parish church and are close friends of the parish priest, Fr. Kelvin Apurillo, the latter invited us to stay in the church’s rectory since it was more durable than our house.
The day of Yolanda:
I woke up at 5:30 a.m. that day — I don’t usually wake up at this time of the day — but I did. My aunt was already preparing breakfast and my parents had just arrived to stay with us. So far, the wind was already gaining power but still bearable and the visibility was still okay. At 6 a.m., we had breakfast; my parents and my aunt were having a conversation about the Senate hearing on the pork barrel scam and Napoles that was held the day before. After some coffee and sandwich, we went to the living room and observed through the window how the storm was progressing.
It was getting more powerful, the winds were getting stronger and the visibility was getting dimmer. A few minutes later, the strength of the wind had already blown away our roof, rainwater was already leaking from the sides of the house. The living room was no longer safe; the ceiling might collapse any minute so my aunt suggested that we should stay in the bedchamber at the back since it was the most durable part of the house. Yes, it was. The room had protected us from the wind and the rain but it wasn’t enough to protect us from what was about to come.
At 7 a.m., my father received a text message from his brother that Yolanda wasn’t just a super typhoon, but a cyclone, with a speed of 350km/hr, the most powerful storm ever recorded, he desperately warned us to leave but it was too late. That very moment, we heard an explosion-like sound from afar. At first, we thought that the concrete fence of our neighbor had collapsed due to the storm. The power of the storm’s wind was already at its peak and the visibility outside was almost zero so we were guessing what we had heard was, and we guessed wrong.
A few minutes later, my father was trying to close the window that was blown open by the wind when he saw that a strong gush of water was already rising outside, it wasn’t even a minute later that dark colored water started leaking from the closed doors. It was only then that we realized that it was already the feared storm surge of Yolanda. It only took seconds for the water to fill the room and the next thing that happened was like a blur.
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I entered into some sort of a blank state, I was not panicking, and I was not feeling fear, not even the fear of death during that time.
The only thing that was running in my mind was, “Am I going to live through this? And if not, have I lived the best of my life and end it today?†I watched as my father and aunt swam and brought my mother and my grandma across the room, into a more spacious area of the house. I couldn’t help them because I could not swim, so I just stayed in one corner of the room, holding on to something to keep me from sinking, doing my best not to get in their way. When both my grandma and mother had been brought to the next room, it was only then that my father took me. The water was rapidly rising and we were trapped in the confinement of our house. My father and aunt searched for anything concrete they could pile up so that the three of us who could not swim could step on something.
Luckily, inside that room where we transferred was the room where there was an opening that led to the ceiling. While the water had still left us a head length of space before it could have completely drowned us, I climbed to that opening while my grandma and mother were holding on to my clothes. The roof was long gone so the opening lead directly to the open sky now conquered by the monstrous storm. For the 2 tries that I did to lift myself out I was almost hit by flying debris at both chances, so I had to duck inside again. But still, I had to keep trying to get out in case the water kept rising. And while everything was happening, my Father kept singing “Our Father†and “The Hymn of Apoy Joaquin†to cheer us up, to keep our faith and hopes up. And like an answered prayer, the water started to subside. My Father told me then to stop what I was doing. He said that the worst part had ended and all we had to do now was to conserve our strength and wait. The strength of the storm was still at its excruciating phase but the water inside the room was continuously subsiding. The most dangerous place for us a few minutes ago now transformed into the safest place for us to stay until the storm ended.
When the water had finally subsided and we could finally stand on the floor, we realized that there were three people that were hanging against the window of the room where we previously were before the water rushed in. It turned out that those 3 people were my cousin, her daughter, and the wife of our town’s barber.
According to their stories, at the time of the storm surge they were carried away by water. The three of them were with their respective families but were separated by the strength of waves. And then more horrifying news: my cousin informed us that her two youngest children had drowned. At 12 noon, the water was gone, the wind was weakening, and the world around us was starting to become more visible.
* * *
It was terrifying. The sight that welcomed us was no longer the sight of the town that we used to know. The beautiful town of San Joaquin was now like a scene in a doomsday movie.