Who would have thought that last weekend would be so eventful for the people of this country?
How can you come to us like that with no such warning?!
Saturday morning, June 21st, I woke up around 5:30AM for my 6:30 work at the lab. I already had things planned out that I wanted to do for the rest of the day since it’s the weekend and I only had half day of work. I wasn’t able to do any of this things at all later on the day. On the drive to work, it was raining with strong winds that seemed to come intermittently. I heard the day before that there was a typhoon coming and that it’s supposed to hit ONLY around the areas of Masbate and Romblon. The weather condition on Saturday morning made me think that maybe it was just some low pressure brought about by the coming typhoon. I never thought that Typhoon Frank itself was already hovering.
At the lab., only 3 of us Med. Techs (out of 6) made it to work. Most of the other employees of Medi-Link also weren’t able to make it to work. The winds grew stronger and rain poured harder as the morning unfold. Around 8AM, the electricity blackout started. Although there was a generator at work, its power wasn’t enough to supply electricity to the whole lab. We didn’t have that much patients either; We only had 6. I was wondering though ‘cuz most of the 6 patients we had were from out of town pa, the first patient being from Cauayan, which is almost a 5 hour drive from Bacolod, I think. It really was evident that most people weren’t aware or warned before of the coming typhoon. Myself including.
Saturday afternoon at home, I was woken up from a nap by the scary howling sounds of the strong winds and the hard hitting of the rain on our roof. The sound of the hard rain was something like I’ve never heard before. Sure I’ve heard the sound of hard rain hitting the roof before but this one was different. It was really, really strong, like the roof concrete of our house was being hit on until it’s going to crash down and give in. All of us at home thought, “Typhoon Frank is definitely here.”
It wasn’t long though when the scary, hard, rain pounding on the roof lasted. It only rained hard with strong winds but we’re pretty safe inside the house. Typhoon Frank only zoomed by us. Flip and I were texting from time to time around these moments. He was also updating me of the weather condition in Iloilo. He was in Iloilo Mission Hospital. He was supposed to have his duty at St. Paul’s that day but he was unable to make it there from Mission due to the rain.
When I was in college in Iloilo, Jaro and some parts of the city would easily get flooded even if there was no typhoon. It’s pretty much because of the river in Jaro and also of the drainage system. Every time it would rain hard for a number of hours, some parts of Jaro would already be flooded. How much more now that there’s Typhoon Frank?
I could never imagine such tragedy would struck Iloilo. No one was spared. Please click for images from a first-hand account. My friend Bombet and her relatives were already evacuating by mid afternoon since she texted me that the water just kept rising. Even the hospitals were flooded. Flip texted me around the time the water was coming in to Mission Hospital; Dark Chocolate-colored water. It just kept coming until the 1st floor of Mission was flooded with water reaching the waist. Flip and his classmates evacuated their quarters. They were lifting beds, other furniture and their personal belongings. Around this time Flip lost his wallet. I became worried since I was texting him and he wasn’t replying at all. It went for almost an hour. Possible scenarios were already playing in my paranoid head. But can you blame me? I mean, there was a typhoon and some of the last things he texted me were that they were already flooded and the water just kept rising. Even though I couldn’t imagine how the hospital looked like with the 1st floor flooded, scenes in the flooded hospital occupied my mind. I was really relieved when he finally texted and said that he lost his wallet. He was worried sick. I was too but all I could do was communicate with him through text message. He was wet and worried and wallet-less in a flooded hospital where as I, snuggling comfortably in bed in a cold house with my family. It was weird to think that in Iloilo, people were busy worrying about their belongings, their properties, their lives; Where in Bacolod, parang wala lang bagyo. It was raining here but no floods came. We even took a drive Saturday night and my family even had mahjong. How can it be so different of a scene in Iloilo? I felt bad for our neighboring island. It’s almost my second hometown. I wished I was there even though it was a really tough time. Well that’s all I could do that night – wish and pray for the best for Iloilo, a place that’s not too far, where my boyfriend, some relatives and friends are.
Fortunately, Flip’s wallet was recovered! It was found floating in the PICU of the hospital by a janitor who thankfully, was honest enough to return it to it’s rightful owner, despite the circumstances they were in. Thank you, Lord for honest people! God bless them!! 
I realized that it’s the first time I’ve experienced in our country that a typhoon hit almost the whole of the Philippines. Typhoon Frank definitely went shopping from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao. Certain things should have been learned already from the disaster that has happened in some parts of our country. Precautions should be applied so that floods will be avoided greatly, as well as other typhoon casualties. I hope that next time something like this happens, the history in the Philippines that was marked just last weekend won’t repeat itself.
