How Figma Drossel Made Her Mark
Hmm... funny title... a bit too serious eyh?
If you guys have seen the International News, it probably has some news about Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines. (Wow.... Pretty weird how they give typhoons such weird names down here) It had been recorded to be the worst rainfall in Philippine History with around 300 cubic meters (approximately) of rainfall within 6 hours. The same amount of rainfall had been experienced back in the 1960's but only accumulated within 24 hours.
As the title says, this event had led my Figma Drossel to be the most memorable Figma to me. Hey, that was a bit shallow, but it's true! =3
We left the house at 9:00 AM Saturday morning to attend my tutor session. I brought Drossel along with me hoping that I could take her photo shooting after my tutor while my dad and uncle were playing RCs in the race-track. We've spent at least 3 hours in the same high-way due to HEAVY traffic and even HEAVIER rain. Due to that, we decided to turn back and just head home.
At the near-end of the highway, the flood was already knee-high so we decided to take a stop in a parking lot. As far as we knew, this was the most elevated area in that road.
By 4:00 PM, the flood in the high way was thigh-high while the flood in the parking lot was fortunately only ankle-high. The water continuously increased in level until at around 6:00 PM, it was already knee-high even in the parking lot. By 9:00 PM, the water was already until the top part of the wheels of our Ford Escape, and by 10:30 AM, the water was already waist-high in the parking lot, and knee-high INSIDE the car.
We had to sleep inside the car with the water up to our knees. The parking lot was already full with cars and other travelers so I guess that made the night less scary and put aside some paranoid-worth factors.
By the time I woke up, everyone was already outside as if nothing happened. The water was only ankle-high since it already shallowed overnight.
The water in the main road was still knee-high so the car can't travel yet. My dad decided to let my cousin and I walk through the main road until the "shore" of the flood where our moms were waiting to pick us up and bring us home while my uncle and my dad waited with our car until the flood disappears.
Thankfully, there was still a hand-span left until the flood was high-enough to hit the Ford Escape's circuit board. If it does, it's either the car will require serious dough to repair, or it'll already be "thrown away."
The whole time. Drossel was with my tripod inside the car. O____O No damage to her, and my dad and uncle's RCs... XD
A picture of one of the old sedans which was in the parking lot with us. The owner said there's nothing left to expect out of this car since he himself was just waiting for it to break down. This was a pic at around 7:00-8:00 PM when the water was still quite shallow.
By morning, this was how the main road looked. 6-wheeler trucks were working as shuttle-services which brought people across the flooded part of the road. Though you'd be lucky if you spot a vacant spot in one of those 6-wheeler trucks.
This actually struck me. I haven't been a big fan of Filipinos myself (considering I AM one) but this just hit me in the head. Maybe Filipinos do have goodness in them! =3
And this was the shore of the flood... When you're in the "peak" of the flood, the water is chest high... Phew! Good thing I got through that without any damage done to my Camera.
i thought the water was going to swallow the whole city! i want it to rain so much in florida, but its not going to happen for many months -_- im glad your Drossel is safe ;DDD
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
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Well, the feel of the floods were apocalyptic... I mean, SINCE WHEN DID FLOOD EVER HAVE CURRENTS?! XD
Brave Fanatic
I live in florida and where I am it rains everyday infact it's raining as I'm writing this ^^;
Naku po ginoo, nung napanood ko ug balita dito samin sa milford halos atakihin ako sa puso! Buti n lang wala kmi dyan pero naawa kami para s mga nabiktima. Mabuti naman eh maraming tumutulong ngaun sa mga bictima...
translation:
Oh goodness, when I watched that news, I almost had a heart attack! It's a good thing me and my family are here in the US but I pity those flood victims. It's a good thing a lot of people are helping out those victims...
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/29point55
Yeah. Here's where I actually saw that we Filipinos care about others. O___O Though that sounds a bit harsh.
Infact, at around 12:00 AM, 4 guys in motorcycles came to the parking lot and parked. They left to look for a canteen where they can eat, and when they came back, there were only 3 of them. They said one got carried away by the current.
oh.....that is harsh..
Student (Bachelor of Asian Studies, specialising in Japanese)
http://www.autaku.com
That's incredible! I'm glad everyone seems to be okay.
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/29point55
Apparently not... a total of 80+ people around the Philippines died. It's a bit low considering that it's a National count, though we should just be thankful so.
I'm worried about my classmates in my university who lives in one of the most damaged areas....
Student (Bachelor of Asian Studies, specialising in Japanese)
http://www.autaku.com
Oh, that's terrible. Any amount of people dying in such circumstances is too many. :(
Mad scientist
I know that feeling D:
It wasn't a natural disaster but a train wreck. One train hit the side of another train at fairly high speed and both derailed and it was all over the media and my dad didn't come home. He could have been on that train. Turned out that instead of spending 30 minutes in a train ride, he spent 3 hours in packed busses now that the railroad had stopped operating for the rest of the day. This was pre mobile phones so he had no way of calling home.
Two guys from my brother's class was heading home and realised they were about to miss the train, so they ran as fast as they could. The train then departed right in front of them and it turned out that less than 10 minutes later it was that particular train, which ran a red light. They were still shocked at school the next day.
The accident was due to a series of human errors and broken safety regulations (on purpose!). Some people got fired and more checks were introduced. On top of that hightech signal systems would stop the train if the same thing happened today. I still feel safe around the railroad ^^
The accident were quite severe though. For the first time in many years the railroad ended up giving up fixing everything. Some carriages were so twisted and ripped open that it would be easier, cheaper and faster just to order new ones. Amazingly the number of seriously injured people were quite low and I don't recall that anybody should have been killed, though that was pure luck.
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
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Woah! Perfect day to choose the less convenient way home, and the perfect day to be a single-second late, eyh?
These are times when I tend to get paranoid. I'm the type of person (no matter how I feel ashamed to say this) who doesn't care about the things around me. I myself was shocked when I felt so worried about my classmates when the storm hit. These are people I don't care about, and yet there was the presence of paranoia running through my mind!
This storm actually let me rethink a lot about myself...
Infact, just a while earlier while eating dinner, I was watching TV. During the news about volounteers of relief operations, one lady was interviewed who was around her late 60s. She said "My house was wrecked. I have no home, I wasn't able to save any of my things... I don't know what to do after this. So I thought, maybe I should just help others." For some reason, my body froze and I couldn't eat any longer... It struck me so much. TT___TT
Evil Fanfic Writer
http://acesan.wordpress.com/
Glad you guys are OK. A lot of material posessions may be destroyed but the important thing is that it's lives that you cannot replace. This story here is also inspiring: http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2009/09/28/Hero_dies_after_saving_flood_victims_377189.html
I think in general Filipinos are too harsh on themselves and really should give themselves some credit. Of course there are the corrupt / dodgy ones (like the customs people ^_^;;), but that goes with any people. Far and away the vast majority that I've met are super friendly and nice (Note this may not include myself LOL).
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/29point55
Ugh. But is it not the "corrupt/dodgy ones" who make their people be ashamed of their own kind? And the fact that Filipinos generally are too harsh on themselves, proves what such burden those corrupt people had already put on the Filipino name.
Anyway, yeap, quite a lot of these sacrificing stories... Infact,a friend of my household helper called this morning and reported that the husband of a friend of theirs died yesterday after saving people from their rooftops until he was already too weak to take himself to safety.
It's very sad how vividly detailed stories are told of a corrupt government, but not those of noble people. Stories which actually have greater impact than those of politics are covered up by modern day insanity!
NNN!
http://zh3us.wordpress.com
Wow. i really don't know what to say here.
Glad that you made it out safely
Natural Disasters really do alot of Financial and Social damages '~'
Have a good rest with Drossel in the meantime!
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/29point55
Yeah. Good thing classes around in the Philippines are suspended for the next two days to make way for Rescue Operations of all sorts.
Time to rest~!
Mad scientist
How can you miss it. However they only talk about one typhoon and that one is called "Ketsana". I wonder why the name differs as I'm quite sure only one typhoon hit this weekend ^^
As for flooding... it can be quite bad. There is a lake/big pond at the end of the road where I live. Whenever it rains a lot it increases size because it takes the water from streams from a large area. Eventually the water runs over, though a house and onto the road. That house should never have been built and the piece of land was left vacant when all the other houses were built. The first time water ran though the house the owner complained to the owner of the lake (which would be the city council). They then made a ditch to take the water onto the road if the lake would overflow again. It happened again not long ago and the ditch took like half of the water, but not all of it.
Some firefighters showed up with pumps to pump away the water from the road since it had created a small lake there and with rising water level it became close to run over a hilltop and into a whole lot of houses. This would have been worse than the first house because the sewer system couldn't handle the rainwater either and were overflowing on the road. One thing is to get rainwater in your home, another thing is to get mixed rain and sewerwater >_<
I guess this is one more thing to think about when you buy a house "was this plot of land left vacant due to high risk of flooding?".
How bad is housing damage in the Philippines? The news here just talks about a whole lot of water and that global warming will cause more rainfall. The weather forecast today stated that the whole hype about more typhoons and hurricanes lacks scientific proof and might be a myth though. Each one might be stronger, but we don't know that for sure either..... so what do we know? :P
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
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The typhoon names differ per country. "Ketsana" is its name for the next countries it will hit such as Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. It has to change per country since the name will be the private file/record of the given typhoon.
Housing damage? Hmmm... In a certain area called Marikina, there are villages wherein the houses get filled up to the second floor of their houses. Infact, it was said in the news that there's a certain house wherein 5 corpses were found floating on the ceiling of their second floor. One of the house owners said that the water filled their house up to the ceiling of the second floor, and eventually trapped the people in the house...
incompetent Eagle Driver
http://pauldy.deviantart.com/
Ketsana is the international name assigned to the Cyclone since it became a tropical storm.
Not so sure if JTWC, JMA or both but when a Cyclone reaches Tropical storm strength and above, it will be given a name regardless if it directly affects any country or not.
Thus it was already named "Ketsana" when it hit the Phils..
Except PAGASA which already assigns Local names at Tropical Depressions..
incompetent Eagle Driver
http://pauldy.deviantart.com/
Glad you, your family and drossel made it out ok~
Those flood images were saddening
I never imagined that tropical storm took the lives of 240 people~
I also heard my girl cousin was able to bring up their large and heavy TV up the 2nd floor when the flood started entering their house.
Now the flooding went down, she couldn't even move it a few meters *_* .. the willpower of people is so much when confronted by crisis~ or so..
Anyways, Hope people could recover and get up again somehow.
Anything interesting... that's what I do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/29point55
Aah... The ever so unbelievable Second Will! There had been many stories of those. Pretty interesting. As a student-athlete, I wish I could consciousley access my second will anytime I want so I can use it during swimming competitions! XD
People recovering on the other hand... I hope so.
Mad scientist
Yeah such power is amazing. I once saw an accident on TV where a small helicopter crashed into a small river. People rushed over to get the pilot out while the helicopter were sinking into the mud. Eventually the water reached the pilot's head and his childhood friend thought "this is just not happening right in front of me" and then he lifted the helicopter out of the water and kept it there for like 10-15 seconds, which were enough time for the other people to get the pilot out. Sure the guy in question were the size of two (and not fat) and he basically tilted the helicopter, but still... not something a human would be able to do.
It's good that your cousin's TV made it out safely and I assume your cousin too. I wish everybody would have a story like that (which would mean nobody drowned)