Surviving Supertyphoon Yolanda

GMA 7’s Unang Hirit reporter Love Añover went back to her home province Leyte to cover the typhoon. A native of Alangalang, a town some 30 minutes away from Tacloban City, Love was not new to typhoons — she grew up watching them come and go.

But Yolanda was different.

Thursday, Nov. 7, the day before the typhoon was expected to hit land, Love and her team arrived in Tacloban, Leyte to report live for Unang Hirit.

“Tinawagan ako ng PM (program manager) namin at sinabi niya na, ‘Love, ikaw ang ipapadala namin sa Leyte ha?’ Kasi they know na lumaki ako sa Leyte at feeling nila na familiar ako sa lugar,” she recalled. “Oo naman ako kaagad.” It was also a chance for Love to see her parents and other relatives who still live in their hometown.

When they landed in Tacloban, there was not a hint of the typhoon to come save for the soft drizzle that welcomed her team. After checking in at their hotel, the team headed for the city hall to interview town officials about the preparations for the upcoming typhoon. They were told that most of the coastal barangays in the town have been evacuated in response to the local weather bureau’s warnings of a potential storm surge.

“Nagpunta kami sa isang coastal barangay to see for ourselves kung talaga bang wala nang tao sa lugar. Pero nandoon pa ang mga tao. So I asked them why they were still in their homes. Sabi nila ‘Okay lang kami, ilang bagyo na ang dumaan wala naman masyadong masamang nangyari.’ In fairness to them, they were ready: May mga pagkain sila, may tubig,”shared Love.

On Friday, Nov. 8, at about 4 a.m., Love headed for the town of Palo where their broadcast facility had set up its base. While on the road, the typhoon was already beginning to unleash its fury.

Several minutes after 5 a.m., Love was still able to go on air in Unang Hirit. But when the wind and rain grew stronger, the technical team cut off their live feed to search for a good place to secure their equipment and for the whole team to take cover.

“Pagpatak ng 6 a.m. talagang grabe na ‘yung pagbayo ng hangin. Iniisip ko ‘yun na ‘yung pinakamalakas pero hindi pa pala,” Love recalled.

The Mass had just ended and so the Cathedral’s doors were closed. But the wind blew so hard it managed to throw the doors open as if welcoming Love and her team to seek refuge.

They thought they were safe. However, inside the Cathedral, they felt the full force of the wind. Not a single thing remained still, not even the concrete walls of the newly-renovated church she and her team had their backs against. Everything was practically hurled in all directions.

“There was this lola, maybe in her 60s, nakatitig lang siya sa bubong. Tinitingnan ko siya, kung hanggang saan ang tatag niya. Sabi ko ‘pag itong lolang ito ay hindi tumalikod at hindi natinag sa nakikita niya ibig sabihin we’re fine because that means she has faced worse disasters in her lifetime.”

But then, she looked down and turned her whole body away from what she was staring and bowed her head. It felt like she already surrendered — and that made me surrender, too,” Love tearfully recalled.

“I was still crying but I no longer panicked, there was peace inside of me and I talked to my Lord and said, ‘OK, Lord. Tanggap ko na. If this is the day na kukunin mo na ako, let me fully accept that this is my fate.’ And then the faces of all my relatives — my parents, siblings, nephews and nieces — flashed before my eyes,” Love recounted.

“And then it stopped. Hindi gradual ‘yung pag-stop pero humina na talaga.”

The team went outside of the church and saw the devastation.

While walking down the street, Love spotted a group of men, one of whom was carrying a body wrapped in a blanket. Trailing behind them was an old man smothered with blood. Love, in Waray, asked him, “Tay, sino po ‘yan?” He replied “Bata ko (My child).” When she asked if his child was still alive, he replied, “Wala na siya. Patay na ang anak ko. (He is dead).”

Love followed the man who brought his child to the municipal hall. When they reached the place, several residents were already lining up to receive their ration of relief goods which were prepared beforehand by the municipal government.

Behind the queue of hungry residents were the wounded and the orphaned, the ones who lost their lives and those they left behind.

It was a sight she was not prepared to see. “You know me, I’ve been reporting for GMA ng mga light news, pambatang show, I’ve never been in a war-stricken area, in a calamity zone. Overwhelming. The emotions na pumapasok sa akin, hindi ko na ma-contain.”

In a corner, Love spotted a woman weeping while endlessly kissing an infant in her arms. The infant’s arm was pale. It dangled there motionless, lifeless. At that point, Love broke down. It was at that point that she realized that she was not covering an ordinary story but ordinary lives — including her own — forever changed.

Love and other GMA News teams lost contact with each other and with Manila for more than 12 hours. Newsroom people and management worried. At about 6 p.m., Jiggy Manicad’s team, who walked for six hours from Tacloban to Palo, a distance that would just be a 15-minute ride on an ordinary day, found Love’s team. And, at 8 p.m., Jiggy and his team pulled the almost impossible and managed to report live for 24 Oras. An hour later, on GMA News TV’s State of the Nation, Jessica Soho interviewed Jiggy and Love. They also showed the rest of their team and residents in the vicinity to assure their relatives elsewhere that they are alive.

The next day, Nov. 9, Love’s thoughts turned to her family. She couldn’t reach her parents via phone so she rented a motorcycle and asked the driver to take her to Alangalang. When she reached the place, she couldn’t recognize it anymore. The town was flattened and Love felt like a stranger, unfamiliar to the town she grew up in.

“Buti na lang pink ‘yung pintura ng bahay namin kaya madali kong nakita. Nung nakita kong kumpleto sila at lahat ay safe, napanatag ang kalooban ko. Naisip ko, ‘ang bait ni Lord.’ Siguro kaya ako ‘yung pinadala Niya para mag-cover sa Leyte para na rin mapuntahan ko kaagad ang pamilya ko. Just imagine kung nasa Manila ako at wala akong paraan para malaman kung kamusta sila.”

After she made sure her family was all right, Love went back to Palo. She thought she had seen the worst until her team decided to go back to Tacloban. En route to the city, the team witnessed a group of residents looting a department store, women carrying cans of formula milk, and children carrying boxes of mineral water-filled bottles.

When they reached their hotel, there wasn’t much food left for the guests and potable water was scarce. They roamed around the city on foot to assess the damage and to look for a deep well so they could fetch water.

It was on Sunday, Nov. 10, when Love and her team were able to board a C130 which flew them out of Tacloban. She decided to ask friends and relatives to help her raise funds to help her kababayan in Leyte and donated it to GMA Kapuso Foundation. After two weeks, she was back again in Tacloban for another Unang Hirit coverage.

For someone who has looked at death in the eye, Love has this to say, “Masarap mabuhay, but after what I have experienced, I can say I am less afraid of death now. Whatever happens, I feel so loved and blessed by God!”