Monday, November 11, 2013:
After we had all woken up, we gathered in front of the apartment so that we could leave as a group. We were a lot less concerned now that it was daylight, and most of us were just glad to be out of that apartment.
As we made our way back to the mission home, we came across a puppy that drowned in the typhoon and had been lying there for almost three days now. It was only a dog, but the gruesome image was still rather disturbing, and continued walking to the Mission Home, eager to leave the unfortunate scene behind.
Arriving at the mission home, we made ourselves comfortable. The couches seemed softer than they had been the day before, and many of us took the opportunity to catch up on sleep not had the night before. Some of the missionaries prepared our rationed breakfast as we waited. Each missionary ended up getting a cup of oatmeal. I don’t remember if it was actually good tasting oatmeal or if we were just glad to have food at all.
We still had an hour or so until President Andaya had planned to meet with the missionaries to talk about what he had heard from the Area Presidency. Taking advantage of the time that we had, I went with Elder Parsons, the Mission Recorder, to see what we could salvage from the Mission Office.
Earlier, I had remembered an occasion when my Father and I had taken the hard drive out of an old family computer that we had been getting rid of, giving me the idea that it might be important to remove the hard drives of the office computers, if possible, so that they could be taken to Manila when we all left. Elder Parsons agreed, and offered his help in getting the computers.
The Mission Office was in very poor shape. The Storm Surge had filled the office, destroying almost everything inside and leaving a thick layer of wet, black mud on the floor. An emergency supply of food had been in the office when the storm had hit, but since no one in the office had expected a storm surge, it had all gotten wet and was getting moldy after sitting there for three days.
While Elder Parsons went through the files that had survived the storm, looking for important documents and records that had been in the office at the time of the typhoon, I worked on getting the hard drives out of the computers. With Elder Parsons’ help, I was able to find a philips screwdriver, and I opened the first computer and tried to figure out how to get the hard drive out. Without going too far into the details of the extraction, still thinking of the 1990’s computer I had worked on before, I was trying much too hard to get the drive out, and was trying to take the whole thing apart when we were called to the mission home.
President Andaya had shown up and was giving a status report on the evacuation. The news was that they were going to try to evacuate us by the end of the day. We were also to expect a visit from a member of the Area Presidency as soon as 1:00 pm later that day. We were told that for the evacuation, we should plan on taking nothing more than what we could fit in our pockets, and that bags would probably not be allowed. Meanwhile, President Andaya would be leaving to visit the apartment about a mile away as well as to make contact with the Area Presidency again. Elder Parsons, who lived at that apartment, was going to go with him to try and get some important items he had left there.
Excited by the news that we were likely going to be off of the island by the end of the day, we contemplated the possible means of evacuation. We were especially fond of the idea of a helicopter landing in the parking lot.
The morning was otherwise uneventful. Whenever I heard a helicopter, I would go to the window and watch them fly past, following the highway, the patrols flew very near to the mission home. Occasionally, a civilian helicopter would pass by. I assumed that they might be employed by the media, as calamity usually makes big news, but they also might have been components of the relief effort.
Still waiting for either President Andaya to return or for a member of the Area Presidency to show up, I got the chance to go with another office missionary to try to finish salvaging the hard drives from the mission office. Returning to the computer I had been working on before, I realized that in the past decade of computer manufacturing someone had decided to make it a lot easier to remove a hard drive. After removing a couple parts and unplugging others, I was able to pull the drive out cleanly just by depressing a tab. Before I could move on to the rest of the computers, however, the office missionaries that I had accompanied had found what they needed, and we returned to the mission home.
For lunch we had spaghetti. The portions were a little more generous than what was available for breakfast, but it wasn’t a feast. While we were eating, a friendly man from Australia that was independently engaged in the relief effort in some capacity showed up at the mission home. Among the missionaries present was a sister that was also from Australia. While they talked, we offered him a plate of food which he was very grateful to receive for before he left.
While we were waiting, an injured man showed up at the mission home seeking first aid. A sort of temporary first aid station was set up by Sister Andaya and some of the other sister missionaries on the driveway of the mission home. Seeing that the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide they had was running out, I was able to offer them the supply I had brought with me.
After 1:00 pm had passed, President Andaya had still not returned, no one from the Area Presidency had shown up, and no helicopters had landed in the parking lot. Many of the missionaries were just sitting in groups talking. Some of us were napping. We tried to keep ourselves busy, but there wasn’t very much to do except wait. As the time passed, a few missionaries that had been evacuated from their areas arrived at the mission home. Among those who arrived was Elder Morley, the one who had been bitten by a snake after the storm. He was doing remarkably well for being one of only a small handful of missionaries that were injured during or after the storm.
When President Andaya returned a while later, he gave us a new update on the evacuation. The mission had obtained a working vehicle that we would be able to use to get to the airport. He told us that instead of not being able to bring anything with us, we would be permitted to bring a maximum of 10kg of personal belongings with us. Missionaries who had just been evacuated from less-damaged areas to the mission home along with all of their bags and suitcases were very disappointed to hear that they would be leaving most of their things. He also told us that unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to fly everyone out that day. Arrangements had only been made for Tacloban Zone to get on the airplane that would be leaving around 4:00 pm.
We were very disappointed to hear that we wouldn’t be able to leave. We had been very excited with the prospect of being flown out by the end of the day. Soon, Tacloban Zone would be piling into the truck and heading to the airport while the rest of us would wait for the next flight on Tuesday morning. Trying to remain positive, I went back to the office with Elder Parsons to get the last hard drives.
The mission office had gotten very hot during the day. The structure was normally air-conditioned, and had no ventilation except for the air that made it through the front door. One-by-one, I extracted the other four hard drives and put them into a bag that Elder Parsons had found. When we got back to the mission home, we handed off the hard drives to be given to President Andaya.
When the time came, Tacloban Zone left in the truck, and the few missionaries that were left from the other zones sat quietly. Originally, I hadn’t expected to be evacuated before Tuesday, but after having gotten my hopes up on leaving that day, it had been quite disappointing to hear that I would be spending another night in this city as the situation continued to get worse. With the limited company left at the mission home, it was oddly quiet. The emptiness of the building undermining the former feeling of sanctuary that had been present earlier, it now felt oddly exposed to the increasing anarchy and uncertainty that lay outside.