After The Perfect Storm

Map of Bayug Island

Looking at the pile of broken logs littered along the Bayug Island coast line.

Walking through a pile of broken logs carried by the flood waters during Sendong.

All photos above were taken from Iligan.Org

Two months have passed since my last blog post and my blog feels like a ghost town like it’s all rusted and deserted. Now, I’m resuming my blog life, but before I continue my blog journey of food, travel and MMA, I would like to post photos about the Sendong catastrophe first (known internationally as tropical storm Washi) that struck Mindanao and ravaged our small city of Iligan and our neighboring city Cagayan de Oro – on that fateful night of the 16^th of December 2011.

Iligan City was known as typhoon-free city because of the hills and mountains that surround the city which gives it protection from tropical typhoons. In fact, Mindanao is rarely hit by tropical cyclones, but Sendong slip through its natural defenses and wreaked havoc in a magnitude never before seen in Iligan or the whole of Mindanao for that matter.

I know its old news but the effect still lingers like a ghost haunting our hearts and minds that has killed more than a thousand people, almost a hundred still missing up to this day, another 100,000 displaced or left homeless and more than $31,500,000 in damages. I don’t want to bypass this horrifying event in my blog so that this will serve as a remembrance to all Iliganons and Cagayanons that braved through the devastation. We were humbled yet strengthened by hope, faith and love for our love ones.

Walking through a pile of broken logs carried by the flood waters during Sendong.

Looking at the pile of broken logs littered along the Bayug Island coast line.

Map of Bayug Island

All three photos above were shot by Leia Bartolome.

P.S.

Ten hours of non-stop torrential rain, thousands of logs (piled besides river banks by illegal loggers for delivery) surging forward like missiles with mud and debris raging mad like a ten thousand stampeding angry bulls with iron horns, all this happening in the middle of the night when most people were caught in deep slumber. The deafening sound of rain outside their windows kept them unaware of the impending danger coming their way – the result: entire villages in Hinaplanon, Bayug Island and a residential area in Orchids Subdivision were destroyed or wiped out from the face of the earth like it was mowed by an atomic bomb blast; Thus, I dubbed Sendong the “Perfect” Storm. May it never happen again.

P.S.S.

Sendong was the main reason I wasn’t able to blog (by the way, Sendong is a name given by PAGASA or Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration) because during the first few weeks after the “perfect” storm devastated most of the residential area in the eastern part of the city, we were plagued with power outages and internet problems. Weeks later I had to make up for my work and I got so busy I had no time to blog at all until I was able to catch up slowly with work. That’s why today I got to blog again. ^_^