In early November, Typhoon Haiyan struck several islands in the Philippines and a Jefferson resident was caught in the middle of it.
Dr. David Jaskey with Greene County Medical Center’s Advanced Women’s Care was the local individual who hadn’t anticipated being involved in one of the worst storms in history.
He says every year he has take a vacation to scuba diving in the Philippines. However, this year, his wife Lisa decided to stay in Jefferson because she was committed to going to a few local functions.
Dr. Jaskey states that his trip started like any other flying into one of the largest cities in the Philippines in Cebu City. He and his friend from Boston took a three hour bus trip north of Cebu and then it was another hour boat trip to a little island called Malapascua.
After about two days of diving, they had gotten word on Wednesday, November 6th about the impending storm.
“We were informed that we had two and half hours to get our gear together and all the divers were being evacuated off of Malapascua. About 30 or 40 of us were taking in a little yellow school bus through Cebu and back into Cebu City where we were put into a hotel to ride out the storm. The storm went right over Malapascua, but we rode it out in Cebu City.”
He notes that they didn’t learn about the destruction that Malapascua received until four days later when they learned that 95% of the structures were leveled there. The Island of Malapascua is not much bigger than Jefferson adds Jaskey.
Another complication Jaskey ran into was getting word of his safety to friends and family back home.
“We were unable to get emails out. We were diving also with a couple from Hong Kong that we know and so I was able to email them and they were able to forward an email to my wife that we were fine.”
He comments that the only destruction in Cebu City were a couple of broken tree limbs and other typical results from a really bad thunderstorm.
Jaskey says they were able to finish their trip on a different island and arrived home safely. He points out that it was a humbling experience and he urges everyone to get involved in anyway with relief efforts for the people of the Philippines.