Yolanda tales of survival, sorrow and despair

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The ordeal they underwent, punctuated by the images of death and destruction, of loved ones and homes lost—as the powerful storm surge and 195-kilometer per hour winds of super typhoon Yolanda laid waste to this capital city of Leyte—are forever etched in the minds of those who survived the strongest storm to make landfall in recorded history.

Here are some of their stories:

Family first

“Our orientation was, during calamities like this, especially major ones, we go on 24-hour broadcast,” recounted 54-year-old Danny Requiez, then station manager of dyBR Apple Radio.

This was what Requiz and his staff did as Yolanda approached; breaking news of the approaching storm. By the evening of November 7, their preparations were done, with enough food stocked and protective gear such as raincoats and boots ready, their field reporters deployed.

Around 1 a.m. of November 8, Requiez headed to Tolosa town from where he gave a situation report. He remembered it was calm but his gut told him something really bad was about to happen because the birds were restless.

As he headed back to the station, which was near the sea, Requiez urged his son, who was also one of his reporters, to go home. On their way, the wind turned violent, rocking their vehicle.

When they reached home in Magallanes, they checked on their family and filed another situation report. Moments later, he lost phone contact with the station and noticed the waters rising rapidly.

“We saw the water rising, the current was really strong … it rose to the level of our roof and I could see the vehicles from the other road being carried off. Wind and water, wind, really strong, and some of the vehicles, those that did not snag on power lines, headed for our house. What I did was bring my family to a room where water had not entered. I placed them by the sink. We had no more roof, no more ceiling, nothing; we were just waiting for what would happen to us,” Requiez said.

“The rain was really strong, the wind, we could no longer see the front of our house. Nothing, and then, as the waters rose, you could see the people. I couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead, they were just floating past, you could hear calls for help, but how could you help because even you wanted also to ask for help. But the waters subsided quickly,” he added.

His whole family survived. But his co-host and another staff of the station died.

Asked what he learned from the experience, Requiez replied: “What we broadcasters learned is government should heed our call to keep the information to the people simple and easily understood. Even we broadcasters didn’t know what a storm surge was, even they in government were blind … And after such disasters, whatever needs to be given, the aid, should be given immediately and not be subjected to politics. There’s always politics involved here. The problem in distributing the aid is politics. Until now, nothing.”

Requiez said further: “And in our work, I have said, whatever happens, anyway, after this, maybe we broadcast later. Family first, family first.”

Life lessons

“I admit I was among those they call looters. I joined in because we needed to live. I needed to feed my family because we were left with nothing, totally nothing,” said Pedro Arib, 33, who has been a security guard at the Department of Tourism-Region 8 office for the past three years.

As Yolanda ravaged Tacloban, Arib left his wife and three children in an evacuation center to join his 62-year-old mother and brother, who were still at their house in Barangay Alimasag, which was already in ruins. The three of them donned life vests Arib had borrowed from his office before going home and decided to try for the nearest evacuation center. And then the storm surge swept them away.

His eyes tear up and he taps on his logbook before continuing: “It still hurts. I can’t help but cry. I don’t know, sometimes I don’t want to talk about it, even they, I haven’t told them about this.”

“From Alimasag to the Astrodome, the water took us. Nothing, we couldn’t tell what was happening, it was like we had been dumped in a washing machine. We did not know what was happening. Right after, I don’t know how many minutes, how long, we found ourselves in Sagkahan,” Arib reluctantly told InterAksyon.com.

He found his mother, injured, her clothes torn off. But all three of them survived. After the storm had moved on, Arib looked for food for his family and medicine for his mother. “All I wanted was to feed my family, find some clothes, I had no other intention, none.”

Today, Arib and his family live in a house lent by a good friend in Imelda town. He is also slowly building his own house in Sta. Rita. Yet, despite the bitter memories that haunt him, Arib says he has also learned an important lesson from their ordeal.

“The material things that we toil so hard to buy, they are nothing. And we in my family have become closer, I have learned to be a better person,” Arib added. — From the wires