Tuesday, November 12, 2013 – continued:
Inside of what was left of the airport terminal, we were packed together tightly in the dim light of a single lamp that the government had hooked to a generator. The roof had many holes, and we had to be careful not to stand beneath them so that we wouldn’t get wet. Ahead of us was some sort of kiosk that had been set up for Philippine Airlines, but I couldn’t tell if they were acting as a check-in or if they were actually selling tickets.
Even though it was still dark, the terminal was very crowded. Many others were just as eager to get out of Tacloban as we were. Cones had been placed to designate a queue to our left leading to the kiosk, but because no one arriving at the airport knew what was going on, people were regularly pushing their way through our group to get straight to the kiosk.
As the darkness slowly faded, we were able to get a better view of where we were. We were in the approximate center of the terminal, there was a partition between us and the rest of the building on our right, and beyond it, there was an even larger crowd of people.
As the sun rose, we eagerly awaited the plane that was going to be taking us to Manila. The first planes to land were a few Philippines Army C-130’s loaded with soldiers and other military vehicles and supplies.
President Andaya, who had gone to talk with the Area Presidency after we had arrived, returned with a handwritten list of the people that had tickets for the first plane. So that we wouldn’t have to copy by hand, I took a picture of the pages of the small notebook for the Assistants to the President to use while President Andaya worked with his original copy.
We were all very excited to see the list. Most of us were on the list for the first flight, and only a few were going to need to wait until later in the day. All of us were quite relieved with the arrival of the list. Because we were already at the airport and our tickets had already been purchased, we were certain that we would be on the way to Manila in just a few hours.
Or so we thought. Speaking with the representatives of Philippine Airlines at the kiosk, the Assistants to the President learned that since there was no internet or cell phone service at the airport, the representatives had no way to confirm our claims of having electronically purchasing the tickets for the next airplane. Neither were the representatives inclined to actually believe that we had somehow managed to book almost every seat on the incoming airplane. Meanwhile, all of the tickets for the planes that we thought we had bought seats on had been sold for cash first-come-first-serve.
While this conversation was going on, we watched the first Philippine Airlines flight of the day land, fill up with passengers, and leave. Several Cebu Pacific flights also came and left, but the queue for their flights was even longer than the queue for Philippine Airlines.
While we were waiting, we got a surprise visit from church representatives that had brought a big box of saltine crackers for us to have as breakfast. After they left, we had another even more surprising visit from Elder Ian S. Ardern of the Area Presidency. Before he had even introduced himself, I could tell that he was someone important. He spoke powerfully to everyone within the sound of his voice. Nothing could have been more reassuring than the intensity of his confidence as he spoke to us about this experience we were going through and the efforts that were being made to make sure that we were going to be safe.
Even Elder Ardern, however, was unable to convince the Philippine Airlines representatives that we had bought the tickets. He even showed them our electronic tickets on his phone, but the representatives, who must have been from the dark ages, remained unconvinced that anything other than an actual printed ticket could prove that we had bought the seats. Efforts from the area offices to work with the airline itself were equally unsuccessful in yielding results.
Our plans frustrated, the leadership left to make contact with Manila to discuss plan B, whatever that was. While they were away, Elder Oakes spotted a US serviceman, noticing that his uniform was very different from that of the Philippines armed forces. As some of the missionaries watched him, wondering what he was doing here in Tacloban, he noticed them and came to speak with us. Speaking primarily with Elder Oakes and Elder Call, another missionary from Tolosa Zone, he talked with them about what he was doing in the Philippines. Sergeant Clark turned out to be a member of the church currently working in the US Special Forces. He had been stationed in Zamboanga, a region in the southern Philippines where the rebel New People’s Army (NPA) is a big problem. But since the storm had hit, he had come with a small team as the beginning of US involvement in evacuation and relief efforts, focusing on trying to find out where US citizens were located. Currently, the team was in charge of keeping the airport operational in the absence of its normal staff and utilities.
Before leaving, he asked if there was anything he could do for us, and we jokingly told him that he could “call in the choppers” to get us out of Tacloban.
Meanwhile, our leaders had been working hard on trying to figure out how they were going to get us onto an airplane. The new plan was for us to be picked up by a privately chartered aircraft, but with one catch—not all of us would be able to fit onto the airplane. They would need to make multiple trips, probably more than two, in order to get us all to Cebu. Unfortunately, with this plan, some of us might have to spend another night at the mission home since the airport couldn’t operate during the night time without lights and electricity, and they might not be able to shuttle everyone out before sunset.