As you may have heard by now Cebu City (along with other towns in the Visayas) was hit with a 6.9 magnitude earthquake last February 6, Monday. A jolting wake up call indeed. Lunch time. When I was at the mall with friends. My 5-year-old and nannies at home. 8-year-old still in school (parents were sent text messages to pick the kids up 30 minutes later...). The city has never been hit with that magnitude. Sure we were used to some little tremors every now and then. But apparently an undiscovered fault line finally decided to show. And the false text scare of an incoming tsunami was just too hard to bear. Imagine the panic.
Imagine you were streets and streets and streets away from your kids.
As a friend put it: 'I knew I was secure in my own turf when I started calling my wife and children and couldn't get through that changed everything'.
I knew they were safe (fortunately our house is on higher grounds). But how terrified they must been. I was a mother walking all the way home (in my platform sandals) from the mall to meet my husband half way (we have agreed on a place, as he couldn't turn to the mall anymore due to the heavy traffic). Tears were welling in my eyes. My children are just very young kids. They wanted their parents. How could that not kill my soul...
So Cebu will, most likely, never be hit by a tsunami. All that chaos was unnecessary. But still...
Finally my husband catches me along the street. All we wanted was to get home and be with our children.
I just wanted to bang my head for not trying to get home earlier. It took me awhile before deciding to go home ahead of the group. Before everyone else now have their cars and motorcycles out in the streets, themselves trying to get home or get to the mountains (tsunami scare).
Lessons learned (an integral part of a mommy's duty):
1. After a 6.9 magnitude earthquake, don't rest on the fact that your city will not be hit by any tsunami (something other than that but just as terrible, could happen...).
2. After a 6.9 magnitude earthquake, you just can't sit back down and have your coffee, thinking everything's cool out there. Go home. Be with the family.
3. During chaos, cars are rendered useless. Traffic would be more than terrible.
...sigh, we are just very thankful our city had been spared from devastating effects. We continue to pray for those hit hard. Pray for Visayas. Part of a mommy's duty is to be prepared.
