Please Help Victims of Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines
Photo is a LONG shot of Marikina City in the Philippines at the very height of the floodwaters.
Comrades Gon 29point55 ( http://www.figure.fm/post/en/2693/How+Figma+Drossel+Made+Her+Mark.html ) and wannbe17 ( http://www.figure.fm/post/en/2720/Typhoon+Help.html ) have already written about their Typhoon Ondoy (international name: Tropical Storm Ketsana) experiences, and I wanted to chime in with mine since there are so many people who still need help.
Let me briefly tell my story first.
This was going to be a significant weekend for me, because my birthday is on 28 September (that was yesterday) and my partner and I had gotten leave from work so we could celebrate together. Things got started on Saturday, 26 September: we agreed to meet somewhere for breakfast.
The rain poured. And poured. And poured. By the time we TRIED to get home there was no more transportation, traffic was gridlocked for many kilometers, and we definitely were getting nowhere fast. We'd been stranded by record-breaking rainfall, which triggered flash floods and landslides. Locations that had thought flood-proof saw the water come up to ROOF LEVEL. In short, devastation and thousands of people turned into flood refugees.
We only got home on Sunday afternoon. The apartment building's roof was leaking a little, thankfully affecting only the central access stairwell was affected (the flats themselves remained dry), and there was a lot of mud on the streets, but we were okay, and grateful to be so.
I wish that I could go out and volunteer at one of the many, many relief drives that have since sprung up across the National Capital Region, but instead I've been donating money: to the Philippine National Red Cross via SMS, and to the people at my office who were badly affected.
If you want to help, please refer to the special page Google has set up for this disaster: http://www.google.com/landing/typhoon-ondoy.html . There's a long list there of ways of donating time/money/relief goods.
OMG!!! I used to work in that mall, Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall....O_O
im prayin for all the victims and my family over there!
Few of my relatives were victims as they are residing in Cainta, Rizal thankfully they are safe. My dad contacted them last sunday for updates.
Oh my. Good they're safe! Cainta, Rizal together with Marikina are a few of the worst hits.
I'm planning to donate some food stuff before the week ends :D
I'm planning on mine. how ironic but i posted the same thing. I must be dumb how to. but that aside, about time a member used this website as a bridge to help others! You rock!
I hope that people can read this and at least pray (or hope) for the victims and that they'd all be safe. My relatives are fine, but I've heard one of my college colleagues have lost his mother and aunt in the ordeal and it's just very, very heartbreaking to hear about it. I thank you guys for posting these, I was about to do the same thing but I think these posts would hopefully suffice.
To those who are not living in the Philippines and want to give donations for the victims of Typhoon Ketsana (local name: Ondoy) a blogger had compiled different places where you can drop off or give your donations to in your country: http://moongirl.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/donating-to-manila-from-abroad/
To those of us in the Philippines who are not able to send goods or physically help out the victims, you can donate to the Philippine Red Cross by texting RED [space] AMOUNT and send to 2899 (Globe) or 4483 (Smart).
You can donate 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 300 pesos.