Last year, during the same month, we were one of the habagat casualties. Our walls were severely damaged but it was because the house was already too old and the paint job was quite bad in the first place. After a year of slowly fixing our walls, I was desperately hoping that the flood would spare us this year. I’m on my 31st week of pregnancy and the last thing I need right now is flood water in the house. I am not yet done cleaning and organizing our home and so I can’t afford any major clean up, given the fact that we still don’t have house help yet.
But the weather was still unforgiving after two days of incessant heavy downpour. I woke up at 7 (after only 6 hours of sleep) Tuesday morning to keep an eye on the creek’s water level behind our house. At 7:30 am, the water level was about half a foot lower than my August 21 image. After just 3 hours, the water had risen to more than 2 feet.
Good thing, my father-in-law’s driver was till here to help us move all the stuff to a higher level. About an hour later after the water seeped into our house, the rain stopped for a while so the flood was only about ankle-deep in the kitchen. If only the rain stopped an hour earlier, this probably wouldn’t happen. Anyway, I’m still very grateful the only work that needs to be done is some major floor scrubbing to disinfect the house. Last year’s damage was way, way worse.
So, I wonder now. Is this going to be an annual event for us? It is possible because flood right now is something that we have to get used to. One of the 10 reasons why it floods in Manila is because of informal settlers desperately settling in desperate areas like esteros and other waterways. Everyday, I witness our “backyard neighbors” abusing the creek with their waste products. I don’t put the blame entirely on them because we have our own faults too. (Not entirely though because it wasn’t us who had this house built).According to planners, there should be at least 50 meters easement on either side of the waterways. But apparently, the informal settlers used this space to erect their shanties. The original owner of this lot also chose to maximize her land space by disregarding the easement rule. And now we suffer…
Since I anticipate this happening every year, my DIY sofa is lightweight so it can easily be moved when flood threatens our home again. I’ll make another post about my DIY sofa soon. So looking forward to cleaning Typhoon Maring’s mess… NOT!
