* Tropical Storm Mario

You may have heard news of a tropical storm that came through our part of the Philippines on Friday, September 19.  Although we did get some wind, the main force of the storm was rain, rain and more rain.  We received approximately 13" of rain in about as many hours.

Friday afternoon we took a drive with the Smits to see what there was to see.

At an intersection near our home the water was a good foot or more deep.  

Yes, we drove through it!

A rescue truck loaded with rescuers and "rescuees."

They all cheerfully waved when they noticed us taking pictures.  :-)

A quiet stream turned into a churning torrent of water.

 A river flooding across one of the roads in Antipolo.  We made it through!

 At the same spot as the previous picture, just the other direction.

On Saturday Rev. Kleyn and I had to make our way to the airport in order to fly to Bacolod City to have Sunday services with our group there.  We left plenty of time in case there were still problems with flooded roads, such as the one below. 

We had to go slowly, but we made it through fine.

This part of the road goes down under some overpasses and along the Marikina River.  That section was shut and we had to bypass it and take a slightly different route.  See the next picture for why it was still shut.

A lot of mud and a bit of water still covering the road below. 

The river that caused this is shown on the next picture.

The Marikina River 

You can see how the water was up over the bank, because of the debris left on the statues of the carabao.  The water was still a bit high, as some of the carabao are still submerged.

Because of all the cancelled flights on Friday, our flight was delayed several hours.  But that wasn't bad compared to others who were delayed a lot longer.  We are thankful we were still able to make it to Bacolod City on time that night, so we could be ready for the Lord's Day the next day.