Issue: Winter 2014 | Posted: January 27, 2014

Union alumna survives typhoon, student serves victims

Bicol (right, in blue scrubs) works with a medical mission team inside the heavily damaged house of the village chief of Leyte, a province near Tacloban. Team members dispensed medications to more than 130 patients during this event.

Bicol (right, in red jacket) provides health and drug information to mothers receiving medications for their children.

Bicol (front right) evaluates a patient for a high-grade fever before Red Cross volunteers transfer the patient to a nearby hospital.

Stepping out of a plane at the Tacloban airport, Ian Bicol gazed at a city he hardly recognized.

A Union University Doctor of Nursing Practice student, Bicol was born and raised in Tacloban, the Philippine city ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan Nov. 8. He returned home after finishing his fall semester classes, but what he found waiting for him was beyond what Bicol said he could imagine.

A sea of tents stood where coastal homes had been destroyed by the typhoon's devastating winds and waves. Trash and debris swamped the city streets, strewn with vehicles turned upside down.

"It was just unbelievable," Bicol said. "The Tacloban city I knew before has been changed."

Bicol moved to the United States seven years ago to pursue his nursing career, but his parents stayed behind. With the typhoon having destroyed most communication outlets in the area, he was left wondering for nearly a week if his parents had survived what he considers to be the strongest typhoon in recorded history.

"I was just so depressed," Bicol recalled as he waited to hear from his family. "My classmates were so supportive and prayed for me."

News finally came that his parents were alive, as Bicol learned through a relative on Facebook that his mother and father took refuge in a neighboring city.

Good news also came for the family of Mary Olson, a 2010 Union alumna, when they learned through an email that Mary had safely endured the typhoon.

With a degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, Mary was in the middle of her fourth year working at Bethel International School near Tacloban when the typhoon hit. She had called her family Nov. 6, however, to warn them about the typhoon, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, said Betsy Olson, Mary's sister and a senior physics major at Union.

Betsy said their mother remembered a similar conversation with Mary in 2008, when Mary called to report "a little tornado" at Union - referring to the EF-4 tornado that ripped through campus six years ago, destroying several student housing facilities and damaging several academic buildings.

Mary Olson shows off a package of hers that was lost in the typhoon. - photo courtesy of Mary Olson

"They have a lot of storms in the Philippines, and Mary doesn't tell us about each one," Betsy said. "When she was telling us about this one, and I started to look it up, I realized this was going to be a big deal. It wasn't just another storm."

Bethel staff members and their families all survived the typhoon, but many of their homes and belongings were destroyed during what Philippine missionary and Bethel founder Paul Varberg called "the storm of their lives."

"I have lived in the Philippines for many years, and I have experienced four super typhoons and dozens of typical typhoons in the past that have caused great destruction," Varberg said. "But those storms were nothing like Typhoon Yolanda."

The school sustained massive damages, Varberg noted. Windows typically leak water during a super typhoon, but this storm shattered the school's windows and lifted the roofs off the buildings. As a result, numerous textbooks and pieces of classroom equipment were ruined.

"The biggest problem here is that everyone is affected," Varberg said. "All the policemen in town lost their homes, most of the carpenters lost their homes and most of the hardware stores lost their roofs. This will make repairs even more difficult because so much of our city is destroyed."

Betsy said food, clean water and housing were scarce in Tacloban after the typhoon, leading Bethel officials to send Mary and three other international teachers to a neighboring city for refuge. But as Mary left the disaster scene, Bicol placed himself in the middle of it.

Bicol (right) distributes supplies with medical workers in Leyte, a province near Tacloban.

Bicol (center) stands with volunteer physicians from the Red Cross Society of China during a national television network concert in benefit of Tacloban residents. Nearly 2,000 residents attended the event.

After purchasing medical supplies in a neighboring city, Bicol arrived in Tacloban to serve with the Philippine Red Cross. For more than a month, Bicol supervised health and pharmacy clinics, assessed hospital needs, worked the ambulance operations, coordinated medical missions, provided vaccinations and helped with a psychosocial support team for children. He also distributed blankets, clothing and medical supplies that he collected from the Union community before he left.

Bicol helped his parents settle back into their home as well, which sustained what he considered "minor damage" with a missing roof. Building supplies remain limited, so his family - among many others -covered their roof with a tarp until proper repairs can be made.

"It's just some material things that were damaged, and we don't care," Bicol said. "Other people died or don't have anything."

International relief organizations remain in the Philippines, Bicol said, as much work remains to be accomplished. Many Tacloban residents continue to reside in school and government buildings currently used as evacuation centers, while others live in what he called "tent cities," which are prone to flooding.

But Bicol added that many improvements were made during the weeks he was home, including the restoration of electricity to downtown Tacloban. Philippine officials also are paying residents to help clean the city, resulting in many of the streets being cleared of the trash he saw when he first arrived.

"This typhoon was an eye-opener for me, my family and my friends, and we were thankful for the prayers and support, especially from Union University," Bicol said. "We consider ourselves survivors of the typhoon, and we consider ourselves blessed."

By Beth Knoll
Photography courtesy of Ian Bicol

Bicol (right) works with the Red Cross psychosocial support team near Tacloban to conduct psychosocial support activities, such as art therapy and games, with Grade 4 children. Bicol notes that despite the calamity, the children are full of energy and enthusiasm.