Against the Odds: Swept Away

During the height of typhoon Ketsana and the massive flooding it brought to Metro Manila, the internet and TV stations were flooded! with picture and videos of the disaster. Among them was this video of a group of people clinging onto debris while being swept away by the strong current of a river and going under a bridge:

…Romeo's entire family was standing on a rooftop with no escape route when the swollen river plowed through the rows of houses at around 8 a.m. Rather than being swept away, they jumped on a floating, entangled mass of garbage, tree trunks, galvanized iron roofing, and plywood that had clumped together. Some of the other people on the accidental raft were strangers whom Romeo says might have been carried by the current from upstream.

 

As they neared the San Mateo bridge, Romeo looked at his wife Mary Jane and their two children – Marjorie, 13, and Mark, 10 – and wondered if they would make it past the concrete span. The water had risen to the same level as the bridge, and their flimsy raft would certainly smash into its massive concrete supports.

 

“Kami ng asawa ko magaling lumangoy kasi lumaki kami sa tabi ng dagat, pero yung mga anak ko hindi (My wife and I are good swimmers because we grew up near the sea, but my children aren’t)," he said… [GMA News]

Their raft of sorts broke in to several pieces and they were all thrown into the water. Despite being separated from each other, each member of the family miraculously survived.

Dead Pixels

I just found a dead pixel on my laptop screen and it’s becoming larger and larger in my mind than it actually is. I’ve been retracing my steps yesterday but no matter how hard I try to recall, I can’t remember anything I did that could have caused this speck to appear. I wish it was just in a corner, but somehow it decided to appear on the lower mid-third of the screen. NOTHING I can do about it but how I wish it would just go away.

And I was wondering how 1 mistake could ruin someone’s reputation; or why people always remember what you did wrong and not the many things you did right... well, it’s one or two pixels among thousands of pixels and it’s driving me crazy.

GMA’s SONA vs Katsena (Ondoy)

Anticipating the Worst, Hoping for the Best

Just last Saturday, Metro Manila suffered from the heaviest rainfall (brought by typhoon Ketsana) in about 30 years. Many areas were flooded and many people displaced and forced to seek shelter in evacuation centers. Those worst hit with the flooding are still in the evacuation centers while many others have just started picking up their lives. As if adding insult to injury, another typhoon, this time a super typhoon, Parma, is nearing exactly the same place where typhoon Ketsana made landfall. Ketsana’s wind speeds reached about 85kph while Parma’s is up to 210kph!

Since yesterday, groceries and supermarkets have been jam-packed with people buying noodles, canned goods, and other stuff in preparation for the nearing super typhoon. Yes, we are all expecting the worst. The ground is still saturated with water from Ketsana’s heavy rains, and it won’t take much rain to cause another round of wide spread flooding.

Right now the weather is very calm. Although it’s cloudy you won’t be able to tell that a strong typhoon is approaching. But telltale signs are everywhere. Billboards have been pulled down and there is a certain hurriedness to the way people are going about. There’s this desire to be with loved ones when the weather worsens. I guess it’s because many people were away from their families when the flooding occurred last week.

Of course we’re hoping that the effect of this new typhoon will be minimal. It again is left to be seen how the government is going to handle this addition to the crisis that seems to have overwhelmed them.

And by the way, Last July 27, 2009, in her State of the Nation Address, President Gloria Arroyo very proudly announced:

“As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be as prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible; to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not….The mapping of flood- and landslide-prone areas is almost complete. Early warning, forecasting and monitoring systems have been improved, with weather tracking facilities in Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Mindanao, Pampanga.

 

“We have worked on flood control infrastructure like those for Pinatubo, Agno, Laoag, and Abucay, which will pump the run off waters from Quezon City and Tondo flooding Sampaloc. This will help relieve hundreds of hectares in this old city of its age-old woe.

 

“Patuloy naman iyong sa Camanava, dagdag sa Pinatubo, Iloilo, Pasig-Marikina, Bicol River Basin, at mga river basin ng Mindanao.”

Hmmmmm… I wonder who advised her of these facts. Thank God for the Non-government organizations and major television networks and all the other private citizens and corporations who took it into their hands to reach out to those affected by last week’s typhoon. I hope we are better prepared this week.

Pet Peeves

I don’t really get mad that easily and it takes a lot of effort to piss me off. But I’ve noticed that there are at least 2 things that get to me easily.

1. I hate being fed - whether someone’s being cute or just wants me to try out a new dish, I really, really, hate it when they bring the food to my mouth. Whether it’s on a spoon or even if they just keep insisting that I taste something I’ve already turned down.
2. I rarely ask. When I do ask something it means I really don’t know the answer. No matter how obvious it might be. And once I ask something, I really hate it when a question is thrown back instead of just answering the simple question. For example, I recently got into a tempered misunderstanding over a trivial thing as editing a document:

                Me: on what page are the corrections you don’t want to accept?
                You: everything I didn’t incorporate
                Me: on what page are they?
                You: can’t you see them?
                Me: if I could, I wouldn’t be asking....

I really hope nothing get’s added to my list :D