Andrea, her husband and their three grown sons took shelter at a relative’s stronger, larger home when Typhoon Haiyan first hit. Parts of the roof flew off, water came in the house where they were sheltered, and she could see a tree fall on her own home in the distance. After the family thought the furious storm was over, they went back to their damaged home. They were eating when the winds struck again from the other direction.

Andrea protected her her son, Raffy, who is blind and also suffers from anxiety and other symptoms left after a childhood illness.

“I just hugged him,” she said. “He was asking me, ‘What are you doing mom? What’s going on?’ And I told him, ‘There’s a storm. It’s here.’ He was telling me that it feels very cold.”

Suddenly, they heard the loud crack of another tree falling on their house, and they rushed outside and hid under the chicken coop, hugging each other to keep from being blown away.

“It was so strong. We didn’t expect that it would be that strong,” she said. “We were just praying to God that nothing would happen to us and we were already so wet from the rain.

Office
http://www.irusa.org/

Citation
Islamic Relief USA [n.d] Surviving the strongest storm, [Online] Available: http://www.irusa.org/case-studies/surviving-the-strongest-storm/