I’m stuck in a McDonald’s taking advantage of their free wifi offer. My driver just took off with my car upon receiving a request for emergency help on his cell phone from his brother in law who just had an accident on his motorcycle.

My parents always taught me that motorcycle driving is very dangerous. I can see it with my driver and my customers. My driver has all the battle scars of motorcycle driving. My customer has his share of scars. My best friend gave up on his motorcycle after 2 major accidents.

Motorcycle driving is attractive as it is cheap and gets you around quickly. But the danger to life and limb is unacceptable for me.

My driver just got back with his brother in law in the back seat of my car. He was asking me permission for something. Probably to take his brother in law to Quezon City general hospital… What are you asking me around for? Just go go go, I can see his brother in law writhing in pain in the back seat of my car.

So back to work for me. Hope his brother in law gets well soon.

A few days ago before the great big flood, our number 1 stay out nannie experienced extreme stomach pain in her whole tummy. I know my children prayed for her around 8pm bed time, but I thought it was just ordinary tummy pain. Until another nannie approached me and asked for assistance on how to cure the number 1 nannie’s extreme stomach pain.

I went to their room around 9pm and saw our number 1 nannie writhing in pain. She had pooped several times already and had thrown up several times already. Sure sign of some vile poison. The body wants to eliminate everything really fast by both poop and throwing up.

The problem was, she was still writhing in pain. It seems her body has not thrown off enough of the poison. She said she drank 1 cup of water. But it seems that wasn’t enough. So I ordered one of the nannies to slice some cool refrigerated water melon and have our #1 nannie eat the water melon for hydration. I also ordered her to eat 1 raw duck egg. She needs both fat and fluids to be able to throw up more. If the body feels it is dehydrated, it will hesitate to throw up and poop some more.

I asked what she had eaten for dinner and the nannies and the maid and the cook all ate the same dinner. My wife had brought home some restaurant food: mixed sea food kare kare (peanut sauce). The mixed sea food was green mussels, squid, shrimp with tiny fermented shrimp paste (bagoong) with the peanut sauce then they of course added white rice to the combination.

For some people, they might see this as impatso (indigestion due to eating too much and too many kinds of food), the other nannies didn’t think she ate that much and it may be due to poisoning or red tide poisoning, maybe a few bad mussels. When food is cooked and combined and sauce covered, your taste buds are deadened and the food is masked of its true flavor. Your tongue cannot save you from bad food.

I thought of poisoning or red tide and looked for the activated charcoal I knew I kept for emergencies. Nowhere to be found. Now I remember, I gave it to my grand father in the province last year. So out I went to every drug store in town. All drug stores did not have activated charcoal. I went to the nearby medium sized hospital and found some in their internal pharmacy.

In the medium sized private hospital, I interviewed the resident doctors about how they were to treat possible red tide poisioning. They said that the first procedure was to treat for gastroenteritis. If it was truly poisoning, they admitted that they were not equipped, none of the hospitals in our tiny city / town were equipped for poison control and they were to call and ask assistance from the big metropolis hospitals for poison control.

That was good enough information. I knew now that I had to go back home and give poison control first aid to the nannie.

In the meantime, we had success with the hydration with watermelons and raw duck egg. The nannie had pooped and vomitted a large amount of her gut contents. But was still in pain.

Upon reaching home, I mixed 1 tablespoon of activated charcoal with 1 cup of cool water. Had her drink the concoction. This is meant to absorb the poison or anything else in her gut.

Then we boarded the car for the hospital. Me, the #1 nannie, another nannie and the cook. We decided to go to the big hospital I trust would do a good job and was equipped, Cardinal Santos in San Juan.

In the hospital, they did the standard gastroenteritis procedure by first guarding against dehydration; she was given an IV drip for hydration. Then she was given an anti-spasmodic through her IV. Blood tests were ordered. Then she was given a pain reliever through her IV. Then she was sent home when the drugs had taken effect. Blood test showed some infection so she was advised to take some oral anti-biotics.

She slept at home and in the morning I asked her to eat a lot of water melon and raw eggs in the morning to force her body to poop out the activated charcoal and whatever content it adsorbed. This was not effective so I asked her to take 1 tablespoon of epsom salts in 1 cup of water. This finally forced her to poop a black poop which was the activated charcoal.

All is well. Then came the floods. This #1 nannie texted at 10am Saturday asking for help. They were trapped on the roof of their house. They are located beside the Tumana river which quickly overflowed. She survived the flood and a few days later I drove up to her in Tumana and gave her relief money and relief goods.

I was comfy in my motel room with wifi access. Monitoring the radio stations over the internet. Monitoring the tv news. Blogging and contacting friends to help report my wife and kids’ situation in the mad flood waters brought by the Marikina river caused by storm Ondoy which poured the highest recorded amount of rainfall in a day.

All people in our household survived. 2 yayas, 2 maids, my mother in law, my youngest sister in law, my wife, our 3 kids.

Re-telling their story, it had rained the whole night. So just before lunch the maid went to riverside street to check on the small dike and see how high the marikina river water was. Just like we always do. She says the water was just touching the lion statue’s foot. That is still a good 25 feet high wall / dike level to climb. No worries. The household had a nice fat lunch. Complacent as in the past, that was still a safe level.

Then the waters started rising in the street outside the house. Then started getting into the house. As experienced in the floods of 1988 and 1979, my mother in law commandeered people to start moving stuff up the 2nd floor if the first floor got flooded.

Sure enough the first floor got flooded. Then the maids heard a load ROARRRRR…. bam, the main door flung open and torrents of water rushe d in. The water was fast climbing the stairs.

The maid shouted: We have to transfer to the neighbors who have a 3rd floor! This 2nd floor is doomed! Something like that in our language. She called out to the neighbors and 3 strong men trotted the almost joining roof tops and the water was already neck deep while walking on the roof top for the ladies. The men carried the 3 children to the safety of the 3rd floor of the neighbors’ house. The rest of the women walked / swam in the rain and the roaring river waters.

Finally all were in the safety of the 3rd floor of the neighbors. Lucky for the neighbors, our household thought of bringing food and water.

While on the 3rd floor they watched as our 1 story house got engulfed by flood waters all the way to the top of the roof. The whole family with the 3 little angel kids were praying to God to let the flood water subside for all the reasons in the world. Cars were floating. A refrigerator floated up and got entangle on electrical wires 30 feet high. Neighbors screamed dying last screams for help.

There was nothing anyone can do but hang on an hope they can go high enough in wherever they were. It was pointless trying to swim to anywhere in the RAGING flood waters. I was monitoring the rescue teams attempting to reach provident but all chickened out at the prospect of raging flood waters. Nature is extremely powerful and we are all at its mercy.

I warned by text that they should not sleep as high tide happens at almost 3am. And that reports say all the dams are expected to release even more water they cannot contain.

I fell asleep in my motel room. Woke up before 6am. Texted relatives. Waters were subsiding as the rain has stopped.

The family found a way when the flood waters were low enough, there was just mud all around. EXODUS! They walked and walked and walked on bare feet in knee deep mud out to the village gate and into riverbanks where I met them with a borrowed 4×4.

We are now housed temporarily in Fort Bonifacio in a condo.

Seeing them you think everything was all fine and dandy. Hear the stories and see the cell phone photos an videos and be amazed at the life threatening ordeal they just survived.

Of course we lost everything… EVERYTHING in the house. Please Donate something. We will appreciate it.

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This flash flood today is the worst and fastest flash flood in history. Sure there were other floods in the past, but none as fast an unexpected as today and still ongoing. Submerging two story houses!!! In the past only one floor would be submerged, and it took TIME! This was INSTANT! Absolutely no warning whatsoever.

The rains began at 8am and by 10am I was stuck in traffic on the way to a funeral. No way that funeral pushed through.

Our house is totally submerged. All our stuff underwater. All. The piano, the computers, all our clothes, the harps, my wife’s new car!!! Good thing I did not do any marketing today. Refrigerator was bare.

My office is on the 3rd floor in the same village. I hope the floods didn’t reach the 3rd floor. My kids reportedly ate lunch leftovers this evening.

The very first thing we need is my family to be RESCUED!!! They are stuck with the neighbors who have a 3rd floor. Our in-laws have a 2nd floor but their 2nd floor was also flooded.

I don’t know how they were able to swim to the neighbors’ 3rd floor. I know they were in total panic and caught by surprise. And my wife’s family had experienced 2 1st floor floods in the same area, one in 1989 and in 1979. Their experience and stories never expected something as FAST as this flash flood.

The waters in the Marikina are still rising. The dams are all overwhelmed and releasing waters in the rivers.

Our only means of communicating is via text messaging, where the signal is weak and spotty.

All our stuff is underwater. We need some assistance later on. But first my family needs rescuing. This night will be very important.

I am all helpless typing in my tiny netbook computer in a motel in Cubao. At least I am dry and safe.

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This rainy storm Ondoy has brought disaster to our home town. By now the whole first floor of the village is underwater. My family is on the 2nd floor. Cars are floating.

I was out driving towards a funeral. Traffic got too bad. Flooded streets all around. I found myself on the big highway at EDSA and in front of a parking space a few hundred meters before the Trinoma Mall. So I parked the car and walked through the flooded streets to the train station. I took the train and landed in Cubao Farmer’s market. Bought 1/2 kilo of fresh raw beef for my food. Checked into the Eurotel motel. Good thing I had a discount card.

So now I’m fresh and dry. But my family needs rescuing on the 2nd floor of the house. Communication is erratic.