Widow’s home served as Noah’s Ark in village
Lucy Bado’s two-story concrete house served pretty much like the biblical Noah’s Ark as Tropical Storm “Sendong” unleashed a deluge upon Iligan City a week ago.
As floodwaters began its rampage at Purok 7 village, the 59-year-old widow scoured the neighborhood for people in distress.
Soon, her four-bedroom house was filled with some 100 people, mostly children.
Bado even allowed animals—a goat, pig, chicken, cat—to take shelter there. “Our terrace was filled with animals,” she recalled.
Bado’s place was the usual haven of Purok 7 residents during emergencies, apart from the home economics building and the 300-seat gymnasium of Bayug Elementary School.
Sensing danger because of the heavy rains and rising waters, Bado sent the people to the second floor.
“Moments later I heard creaking sounds, and I sensed something ominous,” the widow related.
She then ordered the people to evacuate to a nearby concrete house with sturdier foundations owned by a niece working in Britain.
Bado instructed the villagers to break the window in her own room and use a rope to transfer to the other place.
Conquering fear
Ruel “Boboy” Mahayag, 34, who hours earlier had taken refuge in Bado’s house, volunteered to lead the evacuation through a hole in the ceiling of the adjacent house with iron grills on its windows.
“I forced myself to conquer my fear. If we were not able to evacuate to the other house, surely I would be among the dead,” Mahayag said.
From Bado’s place, the evacuees held on to the rope handled at the other end by Mahayag, who then pushed them through the ceiling entrance.
The evacuation took some 30 minutes. When all the refugees were safely transferred, Bado, accompanied by her two children, leaped into the waters.
Within minutes, the gymnasium gave way, rammed into Bado’s house and pushed it floating toward the sea.
As everyone was beginning to feel at ease, the strong flood current uprooted a chico tree from the other side of the street and slammed on the house of Bado’s niece. They also noticed the water rising to knee-deep level on the second floor.
Bado then ordered that the roof over half of the house be destroyed. “I was thinking that in the event the house is carried by the waters, we can still escape through the opening,” she explained.
Mercifully at daybreak, the weather was better. Bado then turned to treating the evacuees’ wounds from floating debris as they evacuated.
Mahayag climbed a nearby acacia tree to bring down two young women who had sought refuge on its branches.
What used to be a bustling community the day before, Purok 7 and nearby Purok 1 are now desolate communities of downed trees and electricity posts. Some 120 houses in the area, including the classrooms and facilities of Bayug Elementary School, were wiped out.
On Thursday, the widow recounted to the Inquirer how her pig seemed to bid her goodbye from what used to be her terrace before her house was swept away.
“In time, we will rebuild our house,” she said. Ryan D. Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao
