Aftermath

Ondoy left a mess that is now being cleaned up. The past couple days we've been able to go to parts of the city badly affected by the flooding. Yesterday we were able to help clean inside houses that are covered in the mud now that the water has gone down. Today we visited some pastors and their families whose homes were completely destroyed in twenty minutes from flooding and they escaped with their lives and the clothes on their back. The water came in and covered the first floor completely and up to their knees on the second floor. They managed to swim out by holding onto rope to get to higher ground, to safety. They're now trying to move into new homes and starting all over as they've lost everything they've owned. The vast majority of people here do not have insurance, so within a few hours everything they owned is destroyed and now they're starting over with nothing but the clothes on their backs. We've only seen a few homes, but the loss of life and possessions is staggering.

These pictures are taken from inside the van we were riding in, so they're a little blurry. We spent hours on the road because of traffic. Many people are trying to get in and out of the affected places, and some of the roads aren't the best.

These pictures are from the compound of the two pastors' homes. There's no water or electricity there right now, so clean up is not going to be able happen anytime soon. Cleaning up all the mud with water would be challenging, but without water, not possible. The first picture is from inside one of the pastors' homes.