In my years of living in Metro Manila, Milenyo is the first storm ever to directly hit the City. I didn't even know there was a storm coming when I got home last Wednesday. I think I got used to having rains in the afternoons so it wasn't a big deal driving under pouring rain that day. The news that night said the storm was travelling fast and had winds of 130 kph and that it was expected to hit Metro Manila Thursday afternoon. Students were rejoicing because suspension of classes was announced early (I am glad people in the government was responsible and sensible enough to be semi-prepared this time).

I woke up at 6 am Thursday with the wind howling but with little rain pouring. By 6:30 am, the power went out. From inside our house, everything looked calm but by 12 noon, leaves and tree limbs were everywhere. By 1 pm, the wind was blowing so hard that a part of our house's gutter landed on the garage roof. By 2 pm, the wind stopped howling, there was only a drizzle but debris was everywhere. By 3 pm, everybody was hungry so my brother, his family and I went out to buy snacks and candles. We were shocked by what we saw - tree limbs were scattered everywhere, a mango tree uprooted, the McDonald's sign 20 feet above now lay in pieces on the ground, acacia trees falling over 2 cars and a Meralco post blocking the main street of our village. People took advantage of the situation by collecting money from motorists passing by while another cuts fallen trees.

The sun was shining brightly the next day belying the fact that only hours before, a storm directly hit Manila leaving the whole city in shambles and sans electricity. Like most people that day, we decided to go to the mall to cool off. We went as far as Market! Market! in Taguig only to find the mall in semi-darkness because they too do not have electricity. One side of the mall's facade was missing some cement, billboards were ripped, their carpark was flooded with water and the landscape of the whole area was destroyed. There was no traffic light and several billboards toppling over blocked some roads hence traffic was heavy despite it being a "holiday". Even EDSA was not spared of the destruction. On the homefront, we still had to go the long way if we wanted to leave our houses because the Meralco post that toppled was still lying there untouched. We went to bed last night with one hand fanning ourselves.

BUT the gods must've been listening to our laments so at about 2 am Friday, our power lines were restored. As of the moment, some areas are still powerless &/or phoneless and a lot of debris still has to be cleaned. The good news is things are slowly getting done and in a day or two, everything will be back to normal again.


*Above photo was taken along EDSA Guadalupe.