Our first repair team just returned from the city of Ormoc in Leyte. It was hit with the same wind intensity as Tocloban City minus the storm surge and is the location for one of IDEA’s deaf schools. The team spent a week there putting roofs back on our dormitory and classrooms. Below is a photo album that will give you an idea of what they accomplished.
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The first three photos are of the team leaving Tagbilaran with their relief goods and equipment. Important is a generator to operate their welder and the Ormoc dormitory water well as there is no power in the city.
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The team faced some tremendous challenges once they got to Ormoc. The first was the realization that the shipping lines had misplaced our newly purchased roofing materials for making new trusses and and the corrugated iron sheets. It turned out that it took our American volunteer, “Circus Maximus”, almost a week of digging through the cargo on the Ormoc pier and bugging officials for the shipping lines to finally come up with the materials. Without Circus’s follow up, we are pretty certain the cargo would have just “disappeared”. Other problems that plagued the team were things like limited fuel for the generator, our portable welding machine burned up, and our deep well pump broke down. With ingenuity, the teams solved each one of the problems.
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Removal of the typhoon debris and damaged building components was a big tasks and some of the older deaf students who had filtered back into school lent a hand. Another American volunteer, Grace Brayant helped organize the cleanup team.
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All the buildings you see are either our dormitory or classrooms in Ormoc. The dormitory sustained the most damage. There is an extreme shortage of roofing materials on Leyte because the magnitude to the destruction. We were forced to scavenge for pieces of old roofing that had blown of other buildings in the city to finish up getting the roofs on both the dormitory and classrooms covered. Keeping the rain out is a high priority. Although they did accomplish the task of putting a roof on, it is not pretty. We still have to replace all the ceilings and lighting as well as significant repairs to beds and lockers. There is more roof work to be done, and painting to make the place look good again. But for now, it is just one step at a time.
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The last photo in this album is of the rainbow over one of our Ormoc classrooms like a promise of a better tomorrow.
