They ran to her mother’s house across the road as a devastating mixture of water, volcanic sand and boulders broke a dike further upstream and tore through the village.
“We were trapped in the house,” Baldoza said. “We were crying, my husband was separated from us – we thought he was dead.”
Happy to be alive but trapped in deep mud, Baldoza and eight relatives, including children, twisted their bodies back and forth to flee, then climbed out a window and climbed to the roof. Her husband, Alexander, survived by climbing a mango tree.
Holding on to power lines to avoid being swept away by strong winds, the family climbed onto the roofs of several houses before reaching a taller constructing.
“Boulders were hitting our house, but we couldn’t do anything,” said Baldoza, who watched helplessly because the torrent carried away the family’s tricycle and motorcycle. “If we didn’t leave home, we’d die.”
“Disaster Capital”
This is not the primary time excessive rainfall has forced Baldoza to maneuver. About 23 years ago, before she got married, her mother sold her house in a flood-prone area of the identical village and moved the family to higher ground.
“We didn’t expect to experience the same thing,” she said. “I don’t think there is a safe place anymore. Everywhere we go, we get flooded.”
Baldoza spends most of his time on the grounds of his home, selling home-cooked meals and soft drinks to employees repairing the damaged dike.
“I feel like crying because I raised my children here, they were baptized here, my husband and I got married here,” she said.
Families in Albay province, often called the country’s “disaster capital”, are accustomed to spending several days in shelters in any wet weather.
About 1 / 4 of the roughly 20 storms and typhoons that hit the Philippines annually hit the impoverished region, destroying crops, homes and infrastructure.
A yr after the mud turned their lives the wrong way up, a whole lot of families are still attending school, sleeping in classrooms and cooking in makeshift kitchens.
Despite the difficulties, Baldoza tries to make life as normal as possible for her family. Their pet dogs and cats roam the classroom, which is split by curtains into sleeping and living areas.
Her youngest daughter had recently turned 18 they usually all dressed up for the standard coming of age party.
Baldoza, nevertheless, worries in regards to the way forward for her children. “The storms are getting stronger,” she added. “How will they survive if we are gone?”
You cannot stop typhoons…now we have to just accept that we’re in a disaster prone area
Many homes in San Francisco are still partially buried by volcanic sand and rock that submerged the village, raising ground levels and reducing the peak of coconut trees.
Residents dug trenches around their houses to get inside. Some are still shoveling debris.
“I worry that the next generations, my nephews and nieces, will not have a good future,” said Bontigao, 21.
About 170,000 people were exposed to mud from the slopes of Mayon, the country’s most energetic volcano, said Eugene Escobar, head of the research department of Albay’s Office of Public Security and Emergency Management.
The “most cost-effective solution” can be to maneuver vulnerable residents to safer areas and supply them with social and economic support, he said. “You can’t stop typhoons… we have to accept that we are in a disaster-prone area.”
Baldoza, nevertheless, fears that “nowhere is secure” within the Guinobatan commune – including the brand new village where her family has received a 25-square-meter house.
It’s a few half-hour drive from San Francisco, where her husband still works as an electrician, but they do not have money to rent or buy somewhere closer.
“When we move in, I’ll bless it, so we’ll be lucky here,” Baldoza said, standing outside the front door of the tiny house, cheerfully painted white, blue, pink and blue. “We hope it will be safer this way.”
