“I thought it was our end.”
That is how Checcs Osmeña-Orbida described her more than five-hour harrowing experience as Super Typhoon “Odette” slammed the PeacePond organic farm in Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, close to midnight Thursday to early Friday, December 16 and 17.
The property also houses an agriculture school for organic farming and a plastic recycling facility.
Orbida said as “Odette” hit, she and her husband, Jesus Antonio “Jet” Orbida, and three farmers ran from their house to their processing area.
Jet is a multi-awarded organic farmer and a director of the National Organic Agriculture Board.
Checcs Orbida and the three farmers hid under countertops and her husband sought cover under a steel table.
“We could not be rescued because a lot of trees had fallen, so we waited and prayed,” she said.
They were in a crouching position for more than five hours and when the typhoon appeared to have left at 5:10 a.m. Friday they emerged to see eight buildings flattened and the roof of their house gone, she said.
The only building left was the farmers’ dormitory, she said.
PeacePond is a profit sharing farm with 24 farmers and their families as members so the flattened buildings belonged to the cooperative, she said.
It is the first Department of Tourism-accredited farm tourism site in the southern Negros circuit, where visitors walk though a zero- carbon footprint agri- system.*