The Story Behind

If you are all wondering what I was doing outside on a stormy day, here’s a brief narration.

I was supposed to take my final exams in UP this morning at 10. As I had said in my previous post, the rain started pouring around 4pm the day before and continued up to this day.(It’s not as heavy right now as it was for the most part of the day.) Upon waking up around 5am, the rain was still pouring but I got out of bed to do some last minute reading before heading off to UP. Before my mom left, I told her that I don’t want to take the exam. We had a short talk about it until she, my sister, my aunt and my 2year old cousin left for Balintawak for a garage sale at my brother’s company (my brother works for Golden ABC, maker of Penshoppe, Memo, ForMe, and Oxygen). I called UP and inquired about my exam. I was hoping that the person on the other end would tell me that the exam had been cancelled due to the storm, but it wasn’t what I heard. So off I went with my brother who was supposed to attend his class (he’s taking up his master’s degree) in UP as well. He told me he’d just drop me off somewhere since our buildings are about 5-10minutes apart. When we got out of our subdivision, we were both appalled by the horror that we saw --- knee-high flood water --- coz our area in QC never gets flooded. Silence crept in for a few seconds and then he drove off. The traffic was horrible, but we went on because of our schedules. I thought we’d make it to UP as we were already about to make a left turn on CP Garcia; unfortunately, the traffic wasn’t moving. When my brother caught a glimpse of the waist-deep water, we went back. We headed to Sikatuna as an alternative route to Katipunan; however, we didn’t get a kilometer close to Proj.2. The street outside the other gate of subdivision seemed like a lake. Cars were turning back, and so did we. My brother thought of dropping me off at home but I told him I’ll go with him, and so we went on looking for a street that’s not as flooded as the rest. We managed to pass through Proj.2, Kamias, Kamuning, Sikatuna and Kalayaan Ave., despite the flood. We decided to pull over somewhere in Kalayaan after a number of failed escapes. After an hour or so, my brother decided to drive off to find a place where we could eat and stay at (it was already around 2 in the afternoon that time and neither of us had breakfast). We went to the nearest gasoline station where we stayed at for a few minutes before heading to the nearest fastfood restaurant. We were planning to go to my grandma’s place, but since there was barely any passable street, we pulled over at a fastfood chain and had brunch. Luckily, my best friend’s brothers saw me and my brother there at that fastfood and invited us to their place. We stayed at my best friend’s place for about 2 hours before my brother decided to take the risk of driving home. About 500meters away from our grandma’s, cars started turning back. When we tried to see what the scenario was, we saw the park covered with water. Well, not the entirety of it. But it gave us a clear message that the streets surrounding it are possibly submerged in water (the court is elevated probably by 3 to 4feet). We followed the advice of one passerby who instructed us to turn back and take a different route. When we got close to her (grandma’s) place, this is what greeted me and my brother. (I would have loved to take a photo of the sunken basketball court, but we couldn't even come close to it)

That white car is just a few feet from the sunken court

It was a shocking sight as we have never seen anything quite like it in the past. But since my brother and I had nowhere else to go to, we decided to walk through.

There was still water inside the house when we got in. The chairs were turned upside down. All the appliances were placed on a higher level. The sofas and everything were wet. But to our surprise, we weren’t the only refugee in that house. A certain Atenean was there, too. My relatives took care of her the whole morning and afternoon that she was there.

Yes, that's me in my funky jacket. I posed for a couple of snaps in case I'll be needing an evidence to show to my professor. (by the way, this photo was taken at the garage. The water had already gone down by a foot that time I and my brother arrived)

After how many hours of waiting, we drove home a little past 8 and dropped off the poor girl at her condo near our subdivision. We’re all safe, thank God. But what we had just gone through today is something that will forever be in our memories.