Winnie's Philippine Relief Diary Part 2

Editors note: Our own Winnie Romeril is currently in the Philippines, volunteering with the Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts. Below is part two of a running diary Winnie is sharing about her experience there. Click here for part one. 

Today I sat with Tito Aure and Lady B. Tito is a university professor who sits on the local Red Cross board and acts as their MC at important events, such as today’s visit of Richard Gordon, Chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross. The microphone Tito grips is repaired with cellophane tape and the cord is woven through his fingers in a special pattern, the only way it will work. “This microphone is a survivor of Yolanda, just like us,” he flashes a wry smile, using the name Philippinos call last November’s killer-storm Typhoon Haiyan.

Tito sent his family to Manila before Yolanda hit. He stayed in Tacloban, working late into the night pre-landfall with hundreds of other Red Cross volunteers packaging food and other relief items for distribution post-landfall. “We knew it was a big storm coming, but we did not understand this term ‘storm surge.’ It’s even hard for us to say, ‘storm surge,’” he slowly enunciates.

“Lady B” as she is known on the air, a.k.a. Evelyn Baccol, owns a local TV channel in Tacloban, Anaton Channel 7, AAC-24. She quickly agrees about the confusing term. “We reported on the storm surge, but no one really understood how it would look. If they had explained to us that it would be like a tidal wave or a tsunami, we would have reported it that way. Then the people would have understood and moved inland. Lives could have been saved.” The storm death toll stands at 6,200 with 1,785 still missing.

Lady B lost all her possessions in the storm- in her home and, it seems more importantly to her, at her office, including all her equipment for broadcasting, interviewing and video recording. She doesn’t talk about the night Yolanda made landfall. I can only imagine why. Harrowing accounts of narrowly escaping from fast-rising ocean waters in your living room and treading water in the dark while your neighbors corpses float by are practically commonplace here in Tacloban. “I was so badly traumatized I could not report on the situation.” She left the city for a while to stay with her parents in Samar, the island to the north. “I am back now, but I still go home often. Having family is so comforting,” she says holding a professional grade camera in one hand, a gift from her daughter who works in Oklahoma.

I ask, “May I take a photo? I want my friends to meet you.”

They lean in for the shot. A pink banner in solidarity with Tacloban from Red Cross chapters across the Philippines serves as a backdrop. “Tell them we are smiling, not like victims, but as survivors. We have survived and we will rebuild,” Tito says. “Please tell everyone you talk to how grateful we are for their prayers, support, every little show of solidarity has meant so much to us. Thank them all.”

“Tell them we are smiling, not like victims, but as survivors. We have survived and we will rebuild,” Tito Aura of the Red Cross says.

Red Cross chapters across the Philippines signed this banner to show their solidarity with Tacloban, ground zero for Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda.

Philippines Typhoon relief, first hand

Winnie Romeril in Palo. Leyte in the Philippines

There's a lot of people I'm proud to have gotten to know during my three-plus years with the American Red Cross. One of the best is Winnie Romeril. In addition to serving as the NYS Disaster Public Affairs Lead, Winnie travels all over the world to work on International Red Cross relief efforts. I first got to know Winnie as she shared the story of her time helping earthquake victims in Haiti in 2010. Now, she's oversees again, this time helping victims of Typhoon Haiyan as part of the ongoing Red Cross relief efforts.

Below is Winnie's first hand report, shared on her Facebook page, of her first days helping the people devastated by last November's storm. We will continue to keep you posted on the work Winnie and her fellow Red Cross volunteers are able to do, thanks to your support. And Winnie, thanks for all that you do, and stay safe!!
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Impressions at 4 a.m. Entering Day Two

I can’t sleep. My mind is filled with vivid images from yesterday. 

From Winnie Romeril:"Typhoon-damaged building on the east coast 
of the Island of Leyte."

We drive through miles of lush green rice paddies punctuated by graceful white herons. Occasionally we see people working the fields, cows finding shade under storm-felled coconut trees, the brightly-colored Philippine flag twisting in the hot, humid breeze. It looks deceptively refreshing. It is not. The heat here is impressive. We stand in the sun for hours with the Philippine Red Cross volunteers organizing and carrying out the relief distributions. I sweat off my sunscreen in minutes. Reapplying it is futile. I feel very far away indeed from my snowy home 13 time zones away.  

The smiling chorus of “Thank you, mam’! Thank you for helping us!” evaporates my petty discomfort. 

The full relief package is too much for one person to carry, especially for the elderly and pregnant women. So village men join the Red Cross volunteers ushering their neighbors through the line with their arms full of mats, mosquito nets, tarps, boxes and bags of food, and other relief supplies. When everyone has received their goods, the men get their turn.

From Winnie Romeril: "Relief supplies are precariously
piled up on this bicycle taxi. Volunteers form the community
help the elderly, pregnant women and other vulnerable people
get the relief supplies to their homes."

Relief distributions need lots of space— for people to assemble, trucks to line up, and for survivors to gather up their supplies. Every barangay (town) has one perfect space for this. THE singular most important outdoor meeting space in every village is… (drum roll, please)… the basketball court. I had no idea Philippinos love basketball so much! 

Last November’s Typhoon Haiyan, known here in the Philippines as Yolanda, was the strongest storm in history to make landfall. The basketball courts, being flat and made of cement, weathered the torrential rains and devastating winds better than any other structure. 

Many inland villages were 70-95% destroyed by the typhoon. Survivors tell stories of their houses being swept away by raging rivers or blown away by the gale-force winds. The more highly populated costal cities were served first. It’s disaster triage. Care for the highest number of survivors in the quickest way possible. 

From Winnie Romeril: "As in other recent disasters,
like Haiti, The Red Cross decided not to place our logo
on the emergency shelter tarps handed out in the immediate
aftermath of the storm. The light grey tarps with dark
grey stripes are from us. Survivors form previous disasters,
such as the 2004 tsunami, complained that it was
undignified to have our logo on their home. Sworn to uphold
dignity, we have decided as a global Red Cross movement
to no longer label our tarps. In Haiti, all sorts of reporters
and congress people said they didn't see the Red Cross
relief anywhere as they posed for interviews
with thousands of our tarps as their backdrop."

Locals are making notable progress nearly three months on. Here and there alongside the rice paddies we see newly framed out structures of freshly milled coconut wood- not normally a common construction material since the wood is soft. However with 33 million coconut trees damaged or destroyed, people are using what they have available. It will take years to fully recover, but today they got a boost to help them along the way.

Giving Something That Means Something

Pi Lamba Phi members Matt Weisbaeck
and Connor Reale

It's been a while since we've put up a new post. Truth is we've been busy throughout the Region. Take this week in Buffalo, Rochester and the Southern Tier, for example. But this is the holiday season, when we encourage everyone to Give Something that Means Something, so as a gift to you we wanted to share the story of some college students learning to do just that.

Pi Lambda Phi member Lee Harmon

The University at Buffalo Chapter of Pi Lambda Phi saw the devastation caused by the recent typhoon in the Philippines and wanted to help. So earlier this month, they asked for donations and sold coffee and baked goods to raise money to support the relief efforts. But of course, this is a fraternity, so they had to do something a little different. They hosted a "Pie a Pi Lam" event, in which they allowed people to hit them in the face with whipped cream pies for donations. All told, Pi Lambda Phi exceeded their $500 fundraising goal, donating a total of $640 to support the Red Cross relief efforts in the Philippines.

UB Pi lambda Phi Chapter President
John Namnum

This, of course, is just example of the generosity shown by people here in the Western New York/Finger Lakes regions following Typhoon Haiyan and throughout the year. Because you Give Something That Means Something, we can support our neighbors in need down the street, across the country and around the world. Thank you!