A piece of Scare from Typhoon Basyang

Typhoon Basyang (international code name Conson) hit Metro Manila slightly before midnight of July 13, that's what we actually felt in Quezon City. It came on hardest a few hours after midnight, first few hours of July 14.

We went to bed at about 10 pm on July 13, putting my children to sleep while my husband was likewise dozing off for an early rise the next day. I was still watching the late night news more about the coming of Typhoon Basyang. DepEd gave out early suspension of classes from Prep School to High school, which is very much being expected by many families. Despite the heavy rain I can hear from our window, the news told us that the coming typhoon wasn't to hit the Metro and won't be a scare to the residents of Metro Manila and nearby provinces. With the news that I just heard and wasn't really convinced by it, I tried putting myself to sleep.

But the noise of the roof of our extension house tells us otherwise! It was keeping me awake. I was already finding myself waiting for a piece of roofing to get off lol! I was beginning to get worried as my mom's room and my nieces' are in that part of the house. I was already starting to pray that we be spared from whatever harshness this typhoon brings. Until I heard a sound that really scared me plus a flashing light that gave me the adrenalin rush! I called on my husband, he too, heard and saw the flash of light. I asked him to check it out, the worst fear that I didn't want to experience was about to come my way...fire!

As he was going out of the house, my youngest brother was a few minutes ahead of him, and while opening the back door (which I can see through our bedroom window) another flash of light came through the window. At that instant, I took hold of my three-month old baby girl and woke up our 3 year old son, while shouting out to the nannies to wake up. I handed Maia to one of the nannies and got back to the room to get Leon.

While I was securing our children and the nannies, my husband was rushing towards the living room in which the main electrical switch is located, he immediately shut down the switch to stop whatever it was going on outside. At that point, I asked him what was it, he told me that one of the lights outside the house was on fire and the fire was already working its way through the electric wire towards the house.

Oh my God!!! Action-packed experience! If I decided to "really listen" to the news, we could have been burned to death.

Since it went brown out last night, just a few minutes from when my husband turn off our electric switch, we were not able to find out the source of the fire. Until this morning, we found out that the source of the fire was the poor electrical wiring which we weren't really minding of despite its very visible state. It sparked when while lit, water was flowing on it, sipping in through small cuts along the way.

My husband is now working on replacing the very poor and aged electrical connections. Good thing we already replaced the ones in the main house a few years ago.

It really pays to regularly check on household maintenance to avoid accidents of this kind.

Thank God that we are all safe despite the experience. And I say, we've learned from the hard way, scariest way!