MESSENGER! IMPROVISED RAFT DURING TYPHOON “MARING with HABAGAT” This week August 19 up to the 22nd of 2013, the Northern Eastern/Southern parts of Philippines were so much affected by typhoon named “Maring” (local name) with burdensome winds brought by what we call Habagat. Classes were suspended in all levels, various institutions were closed and the different business offices ceased their operations and even the local government offices stopped their usual transactions, but only those government agencies that are concerned with Disaster Response were ordered to have their work. Our municipality, which is Cainta, Rizal is one of the known flooded area in our region, rains and flood waters coming from upland cities always rushed into our local streets and villages every time we experience storms and typhoons. Because our area is one of the catch basins of our neighboring towns and cities, flood goes up knee-high in just a matter of minutes and lo and behold in just an hour our village streets as well as the perimeter roads of the village are all not passable to light vehicles. I guess I would say that we are fortunate enough because we are one of the few houses in our village who have a second floor plus our place is on the elevated part of the street, in short if flood reaches waist high outside our street its already knee high inside our garage and that will be the signal to prepare the second floor for evacuation. So, whenever this situation comes to us what we always do is prepare our house for some neighboring visitors who does not have second floor and those who will be affected by the flood, we turn our home into a little evacuation place due to invasion of flood water in the houses of our neighbors or the water is already getting inside their homes (some even ceiling-high!). August 19, 2013 in the morning at 7:00 o’clock I immediately went to the public market and bought food for our breakfast and for stocks of food supplies in preparation for any unwanted possible events and for possible visitors that will come. This is what I experience that early morning of Monday, with my outdoor backpack strapped on me to put all the provisions I need to buy, rain poncho, head gear and an umbrella I charge walking through the rains, winds and flood in our village streets. When I went to the market to buy supplies the flood in our streets were just I would say before knee high maybe around two feet high, it took me almost an hour to buy what we needed, After the marketing was done I walked back to our village, upon entering our village gate, I was surprise! that it was already above the knees and close to my waist so it took me half an hour to reach our home because I have to deal and overcome the challenge of the current of flood, anyway I was successful in reaching our home. So with that experience it came to my mind to build a raft that would help us in travelling from our house to the outside streets of our village plus have an available transport service that would be used to transfer our neighbors who we will help move from house to house. With a village friend of mine who was a boy scout during his elementary days we decided to build an Improvised raft, we gathered our materials empty plastic bottles of 1.5 and 2 liters soda, sack, swimming/floating devices, scraps of wood and different ropes. When we finished our first version of the raft we transfer first the mother of my friend together with his nieces to our house and then we fetch another senior citizen neighbor of ours to be transferred to our house for refuge, then we received a call from one of our friend from another village to transfer one of our friends’ parents to another house with second floor from an adjacent street. The day ended with three families especially senior citizens who were serviced by our improvised raft. Because the raft was constructed in a very fast pace we needed to improve and transfer some of the positions of our floating device and tightening of the wrap and frap of our ropes, so a second version was made to improve the design and its durability and easy movement of passengers inside the raft. The following days passed by with continuous rain and flood but our raft was always ready to be of service, floods went up and went down but we were not worried because we have something to use to deal with the flood problem. Thank you to the Almighty God the typhoon went out of the country and flood stopped to rise on the third day, it was really a joy to service other people as we always says “Do good turn daily” and as the scout saying goes “Once A Scout, Always A Scout”. We always bring peace to other people and to our neighbors if we continue to give service anytime as a Scout. And this is the message of peace that I want to share with you, let there be peace in our community through the heartfelt services that we give. #scoutsmessengersofpeace
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 06:16:05 +0000
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