The Ark

Author's note: These chapters are NOT stand-alones...The story starts here.

God’s Cleansing

Gone in a matter of minutes…1

It’s November 5, 2013. Things have continued to be good for us. The kids are fine. The farm does well. My gals are wonderful.

Bohol, a neighboring island, had a bad earthquake that did a lot of damage, but we were OK.

Weather-wise, the big storms have all gone north of us. But right now I’m worried.

There’s a typhoon headed our way. It’s a big one. At this moment, it’s a signal 4 storm, but they say it’s getting stronger, and it looks like it’s coming right toward us.

As a precaution, I’m watching our power consumption. If we dip into the batteries in any way I’ll tell the gals to cook with charcoal, as that seems to be a big power draw. I need to make sure our batteries are at one hundred percent charge when the storm hits. Even with the entire water storage we have, we have stowed as much potable water as we have containers for. If things go terribly wrong, I want backups.

I have tested all the shutters, and we have moved everything that was on the decks inside. All the vehicles are up in the car park. The motorcycles are chained to steel columns when not in use. I have also run heavy chains from the tow-bars on the pickups and SUV to steel columns. Sure, if the water tops the carpark it might not take the building, but it might try to wash the vehicles away.

The TV and radio stations are all issuing warnings. Some folks have flown out, but there aren’t enough planes to carry all who want to leave. Shelters have been set up all over the island. Here’s hoping we’ll be OK, because the news stations are saying that this thing might become a super typhoon, a signal 5 storm.

It’s the morning of November 7^th and they say the storm is headed right at us with winds of 280km/h. I convert that as best I can and I get 175mph. The storm is the largest we have real records for. Calling it a super typhoon may be underestimating the reality of it. I have a sinking feeling that the optimism that this place can handle bad weather may have been misplaced.

Things are already getting nasty outside. I close all the shutters and add more protection to what I can. I have added extra-large, heavy chains between the already secured vehicles and the steel posts in the carpark, along with the existing chains I already am using. I also fit in as many of our farm tractors as I can, and have chained them up, too. The ramp is up.

I have physically disconnected from the commercial power. While we don’t use it, I had never physically disconnected, as I figured if we have a momentary need I might switch over, but I don’t want a fire from an electric line flapping around. The wind through the generators is now producing excess power, far more than we are consuming. The batteries are at 100% charge.

We wait, with radios and TVs turned on, and the house sealed up tight.

The radio reports the storm has hit the eastern side of our island head on at Guiuan, Eastern Samar, at noon. The place is a tentacle sticking far out into the ocean to the southeast of the rest of Samar. We are on the western side of the island. So, while the history books will say it hit Samar first, it really is headed right for Tacloban!

The worst for us hasn’t hit yet. Oh, it’s bad already. It’s real bad, but it’s clearly going to get far worse.

We still have radio and TV. But maybe not for long.

The sound outside is deafening. Things are crashing against the house. We can feel it and hear it.

The noise, the rain, the wind, goes on for hours. Some of the shutters are showing serious dents. The recessed CCTV cameras I have that are still working show that not a tree is still standing. Everything is being blown down and away.

A wave of water comes at us with real force. It’s pretty damned high. It looks like it may rip through the carpark. … It does! We can feel the force of the water as it hits the posts. My CCTV cameras on the carpark show it happening, but it’s not way up.

The cameras show that the water isn’t topping the cars, and it’s nowhere near the batteries.

The sound is incredible. The whole house shudders, like a god with a sledge hammer is pounding the building.

There are things, big things, being carried in the water. At that moment, I realize that our vehicles will probably not survive this. But all I can think about, again, is that the water is not high enough to reach our storage batteries. I never considered I would need them even higher than they are.

The local radio stations are silent. I have a shortwave, and pick up a few calls of distress and a lot of useless chatter.

Monitors show I may have lost a couple of wind turbines. I have no idea how the solar panels are faring. We still have plenty of power. The water pump is still functioning.

The banging of things against the house has stopped. We wait inside, sealed off from the world. I have never in my life seen such destruction, even via our few little cameras. The water is gone. God, what it must be like outside these walls.

Rains, heavy rains, smash against the house. The winds are still gale force, though they come more and more separated by moments of calm, and then the torrents again. We remain closed up.

There’s silence for a while, followed by more torrential rains. This goes on and on, hour after hour, for more than twenty-four hours.

Our power generation has our batteries at 100% and we are producing excess current, primarily because of the strong winds driving the turbines that are still functioning. We still have water. While all the vehicles still exist because the chains held them in the carpark, I doubt they will function.

I have no idea what has happened more generally. There’s no news, no cell service, and no internet. The world outside our home has gone silent.

A CCTV camera shows the sun is out and the winds are safely down to manageable levels. I open up a shutter on the leeward side, the side away from where the wind came.

It’s hard to explain. The words cannot convey my meaning, when I say, it’s all gone. Everything is gone. Can you even begin to understand the immensity of it? All that was, has been wiped from the face of this earth. There’s nothing there. Homes I used to see do not exist anymore. I do not see roads where there should be roads. It’s all gone, or covered by debris.

I open up every shutter I can, that hasn’t been so badly dented that opening is not possible without an acetylene torch or a pry-bar. The elevator, which in nominal status sits inside the house is operative. We can get down close to the floor of the carpark, by operating it in manual mode by use of a key and a stop button inside the lift.

Clearing the carpark, just to allow the elevator to reach the floor and then down to the pad below, is slow going. It takes the better part of a day. Once we have cleared that debris away on the carpark level we are able to get close to the pad below. The pad isn’t strewn with debris as bad as was the carpark. It’s mostly mud here. We shovel it away, and are able to get the elevator all the way up and down.

Back up on the carpark, I open up the hoods of the SUVs and all looks OK inside the engine compartments. The panels of the vehicles are pretty well beaten up but the doors open. While the carpets and seats are wet, I don’t see anything particularly troubling. The seat backs are dry and the dash panels do not show signs of water damage.

I decide to try and start one of them. Some water blows out of the tailpipe, but it does start. I decide to run it for fifteen minutes, and try to start the other SUVs and our pickups. All start. Even Elena’s Vios does. I’m frankly amazed. Sure, they all look like someone has been at them with a sledge hammer, but they all run. I’m sure the bikes are going to need far more help, but I try mine. It takes a while but, sure enough, it starts.

Getting them off the carpark means a lot more clearing on the carpark level, and the ground around where the ramp lowers down.

That takes a while, but I’m able to use two tractors, with a heavy chain run between them to clear off the area up on the carpark level. I’m able to get the ramp close to the pad, and by driving those two tractors with their large tires and sizeable ground clearance off the ramp, as the ramp hangs a bit in the air, I’m able to use the chain again and clear the ground around the ramp landing area and finish lowering the ramp.

We have spent two days since the storm just to get this far. We haven’t seen anyone. We haven’t heard anything. And what was a road will need large earth moving equipment to create a passable trail of any type.

We still have power, water and food. We are OK. But what about anyone else? We haven’t seen a living soul.

It’s day three after the storm.

We hear and then see some aircraft. Later we hear and then see a helicopter.

A radio station is on the air. There are messages about relief supplies. Cell service is still down.

I figure at some point we will see equipment cleaning the road. We go about cleaning up what’s ours, and wait it out. We have no idea what is happening elsewhere. With the help of some pry-bars, I get more shutters opened. I get up to the roofs and inspect the turbines and the solar panels. We will need to replace some panels, but most just need to be cleaned off. It looks like a tree branch ran right through a turbine. It’s a total loss. Another has lost its blades but can probably be repaired. Three others I’m able to put back in service for now, though I do need some parts replaced on them.

I figure we have enough rice, and frozen and canned foods to keep us going for a month. The first things we will run out of are eggs.

I figured we would lose the chickens, the goats, and the pigs in the storm. So all those animals were slaughtered, butchered and put in the extra freezers we purchased at the last moment.

All the crops are gone. The coconut and banana trees are a complete loss.

It’ll take some years to fully put the farm back together. We can probably clear enough to start planting vegetables and some rice a little later. I suspect livestock will need to be bought from other islands. We will want to get a flock of chickens as soon as we can. But right now we can’t drive off our property.

It has been three days and we see no sign yet of a government effort of recovery. I’m sure it’s happening in Tacloban, but it hasn’t reached us yet.

Day four.

There’s a large yellow ‘grader,’ with a dozen or so men around it, clearing the road. We go out to meet the men and ask, what has happened?

What we learn is hard to understand. So many thousands are dead and even more just missing. Some were washed out to sea, and never to be seen again. A thirty-foot wall of water has leveled much of Tacloban. Very little remains standing.

In the city, food and water are on very short rations. Government planes have been unable to land. Supplies are coming in via the sea from other nations, but only via small craft, as the harbor has been severely damaged.

The Philippine government is completely unable to cope. Almost no large equipment has made it to the island as the docks are all destroyed. People wander around in a daze. Families are unable to find loved ones. Shelters that were supposed to offer a safe place to weather the storm became places of death.

We are asked, are we OK? Who are we still looking for? Do we need any food or water? What are our needs? When we tell them that we will be OK for a month or more, we get dazed looks lacking comprehension. We ask if any of them need water?

They ask why we are willing to share such a scarce resource. To their total disbelief, we tell them we have power and water. Someone tells another that we must be in shock and denial.

Finally, a man who seems to be running the crew asks if we will prove it. Maybe he thinks we are all insane, as he brings some large men with him as he comes to the house. We have a garden hose out on the pad. We ask if he needs to come inside, or if this water will do. He smiles and says this is OK, turn on the water. The hose has a lever-activated spray nozzle. Bim grabs it and sprays his men down, cooling them off. The looks of the men are ones of those who see a mirage that turns out to be real. They are laughing and jumping up and down.

The man who appears to be the leader asks us to show him we have power. The lift is here on the pad. I walk into it and motion him to come. He comes slowly, unsure if this is a game. Once he is in, we use the lift and bring him up, through the carpark and into the house.

As we pass through the carpark, he asks indicating the vehicles, Do any of these still run?

Yes. All of them are OK.

As we rise to the living room level, lights are turned on and an aircon is running.

He looks at me and simply asks, How?

We use solar and wind power. There’s some damage to the system, but we are still generating more power than we are using. The batteries are all fully charged. The power runs the submerged pump in our well. The storm didn’t hurt that. We have enough food for a while.

Why is the glass not broken?

Watch over there. I’ll close that shutter. I flip a switch on the shutter on the leeward side, as it was not damaged. It closes smoothly. I walk him outside onto the deck to look at it. The entire house, all these pods are covered with these shutters. We were closed up completely during the storm.

Sir, if your vehicles truly run, they are needed to carry supplies to many in need. The government will pay you for them.

Where should we take them?

The guy tells me and, with one gal per vehicle, two of our three SUVs, two pickups, and the Vios are sent on their way with more gals following on three bikes that are still running. Once the vehicles are dropped off, all will come back on the bikes. I hold one SUV back for now.

The guy’s crew has pressed on and, once I lower him down on the lift, he trots out to catch up with them.

I am standing on the pad watching as the grader and work crew moves slowly along.

Ten has come to my side and pulls on my arm. Ira, my school a shelter. Maybe some people still there and need help. Please, can we check to see if any there?

Honey, that was four days ago. There’s no sense in looking now.

Ira, please. Look out there. Where they go? Please, we really need to go and check.

‘We’ are not going. You are going to stay here. At times like this, people do desperate and stupid things.

But…

OK, OK, I’ll go, but alone. … No, don’t even think of arguing. I need to take a bike. There’s no way I’ll get there by the SUV. If I need to carry someone they can ride behind me and it is also easier if you are not there.

Ira, please…

No. That’s final.

Take a photo of what you find. Please, for me?

OK. That, I’ll do.

My bike’s gas tank is full. We filled all the tanks before the storm hit.

I put some water bottles and some energy bars in a bag and hang it behind me. In case I do meet someone, they will probably need water and a bit of food.

It’s not much of a problem getting to the road and, where the road has been cleared, there’s absolutely no one else out here but me. However, it doesn’t take long before I pass the grader. From that point on, the going is slow. I pick my way along.

As I go, I see bodies, clearly dead. They are bloated and unrecognizable. Bugs crawl over the dead flesh. Some are broken in seemingly impossible ways. They lie lodged against a tree trunk or just out in the fields. It’s beyond gruesome. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

The men who were working spoke of thousands dead. That might be a pitifully major undercount. The death toll may well reach the tens of thousands, if what I see holds true.

What normally is a fifteen minute ride takes me an hour and a half. The school is partially standing and partially gone. I see more dead. Many of these are children. I know I promised pictures, but I’ll be damned if I take pictures of this.

There are some angles where, if I take a picture, there will be none of the dead. I take a couple of these and then put the cellphone away.

I hear something.

It’s not clear what it is but, parking the bike, I walk in that direction. In a well-built alcove, against one of the stronger sections of wall, there are some bodies. I think someone is alive.

It’s dark in the alcove, and the bodies are a jumble.

So as not to scare someone, if there’s a person alive, I call out the Cebuano version of hello. Ay-ooo, ay-ooo!

In a hoarse, parched voice, I hear, Here. We are here! Please…

Wait a minute. I’ll bring some water to you.

Yes, Thank God! Yes!

I grab the bag and the bottles of water. And return. There are three children and an adult. They are a mess, and I can’t make out much more. There are dead bodies nearby. It’s not something you want to remember.

I open the cap of a bottle and bring it to the lips of the adult, but a hand pushes me toward a child. I give the child a few sips and move to the next child, and then to the next. A few sips each. The adult lifts up her head to take a sip now and, as she does, I realize, it’s Debbie.

I don’t say a word. Once she has had a few sips, we repeat the process. A few sips and then on to the next. One bottle is emptied. I open up another and return to the routine. When half of the bottle is gone, a child pushes the bottle away. She has had enough for now. I offer water to the next child and on we go until the second bottle is also emptied. I’m about to open up the third when two more say, No. It’s OK.

I grab an energy bar from my bag, break it into pieces, and hand a piece to each. Slowly, these are consumed. Another bar is brought forth and another bar is consumed, if a bit even more slowly.

I ask, More?

Debbie says, Not now.

Can you all walk to my motorcycle?

I think so. You take us to town?

No. They say the town is destroyed. We will go to my place.

It standing? Ira? Your place survives?

Yes. It survives.

How?

Not now, Debbie. Not now. I need to figure out if there are any more here alive.

There none. I look. None.

Then let’s get out of here.

Five on a motorcycle is not a record, but four horribly weak riders behind me on this difficult path, as the sun is setting, is a challenge. We need to get back while I still have daylight.

We aren’t going to make it. The sun is getting very low, and I’m going slowly. I have to be careful not to pitch off one of my riders. A few minutes before total darkness, I see the yellow grader. Beyond that, the road should be clear.

It’s dark by the time I reach the men and the grader. I stop for a second.

Sir, you find some in need?

Yes. Just these.

They need water?

No, I brought some with me.

Where will you take them?

To my house.

God bless you.

Yeh, I’m not sure about God right now. … I better get going. Thanks to you the road is clear back to the house.

The rest of the ride only takes five minutes, and I quickly drive up onto the ramp and the carpark. All the other bikes are here, so I turn a key and press the switch to withdraw the ramp, and call the lift down from above. The lift is designed to carry no more than four, but these kids are small enough that we call all cram in.

I press the button to go up and the lift takes us to safety.

§ § §

What will be anew...1